


Occhiolism

by Anonymous



Category: Pocket Monsters: Sword & Shield | Pokemon Sword & Shield Versions
Genre: Angst, F/F, Fluff, Gen, Growing Up, Leon's journey to champion, M/M, Pre-Canon, Rose is kinda a dick, Slow Burn, and to liking Raihan
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-28
Updated: 2021-02-18
Packaged: 2021-03-05 18:55:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 23
Words: 74,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25580197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Postwick is a small, middle-of-nowhere kind of town that's never produced anything of significance.Maybe it’s just the climate of the place - maybe a no-name town breeds no-name people. Maybe it’s the sleepy atmosphere that swallows you up, or maybe all the myths about the Slumbering Weald are true after all.So, no, Postwick isn't anything special at all, and neither are its people.But, Leon thinks, maybe he can change that.
Relationships: Dande | Leon & Hop, Dande | Leon & Sonia, Dande | Leon/Kibana | Raihan, Rurina | Nessa/Sonia
Comments: 198
Kudos: 136
Collections: Anonymous





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I know there are like 5 people left but I was gonna write this anyway so I just figured I'd post it for anyone who might want to read it.

Postwick is the type of place people go to disappear.

It's one of those small, middle-of-nowhere kind of places, with nothing to its name. If you've seen one, you've seen them all. Rarely does it even show up on regional maps - with its meager population of less than fifty, there’s hardly anything more notable than the kitschy-cute welcome sign hammered into the beat up dirt path that meanders through the hills before reaching town - the only road to town, in fact. The population painted onto the sign is peeling off, shredding into little confetti-thin pieces. Leon would know, he passes by it every other day to meet Sonia.

(Well, they do have wooloo. So, so many wooloo).

Postwick has never produced anyone of significance, not for lack of trying. 

Maybe it’s just the climate of the place - maybe a no-name town breeds no-name people. Maybe it’s the sleepy atmosphere that swallows you up, or maybe all the myths about the Slumbering Weald are true after all. 

Between the two of them, Sonia decided to take it upon herself to investigate that latter point. She walked out of the broken-latch maw of the forest with a backdrop of mist curling behind her, as if trying to draw her back in. She says she doesn’t remember anything that happened, but Leon would like to think she’d remember seeing the beast of the Weald, should it exist. 

(Leon’s learned not to heed any of the stories Professor Magnolia tells them, when she has the energy to leave her lab. The Slumbering Weald can’t go on forever, because the bordering mountains would keep it from doing so. Postwick is just some back-water town that has to make up its own drama to keep everyone entertained. And scared.)

So, no, Postwick isn’t anything special, and neither are its people. 

But he’s holding a pleasantly-warm egg in his arms, and he thinks _maybe we can change that._

He’s eleven, of course, and every eleven year old has ambition too great to be contained in the size of their palms, but he just… _knows_ it. That bone-deep kind of knowledge, like he knows that the earth rotates around the sun and that Sonia will be waiting for him at the sign tomorrow and that he loves his baby brother Hop so much that it scares him. 

Magnolia gave him the egg for his eleventh birthday, claimed that it was in exchange for him fixing her fence, even if he would’ve fixed it without the incentive. She wants to know if there’s any genetic predisposition for the Dynamax phenomenon, and she got special permission to import a Kantonian-Charizard to breed. 

So the egg is either a Charmander or a Gible, and he’ll be happy with either.

In the distance, through the sea of wooloo, one of the older kids is trying to shear one for the coming summer months. Leon knows from experience that wooloo do _not_ appreciate being sheared. At all.

Sonia kicks her legs in sync with him, hands finding purchase on an ivy-covered wall. Her hair is pulled back in those braids she hates. She says it hurts her head, but her Mom thinks they’re pretty. 

“Shouldn’t you be helping him?”

“He doesn’t need my help.” Leon huffs. And he’s not too inclined to help, either, because last time one of those little monsters nearly took his head off. “He’s doing fine.”

He’s wrestling the wooloo and losing. He pretends not to see. 

Sonia snorts. “So, you thought about it, right? The journey?”

“‘Course I have.”

The idea of leaving home fills him with a sort of anxious, anticipatory static. Wanderlust squeezes his throat tight. The furthest he’s ever gotten away from home is Professor Magnolia’s house, because he can’t manage to get anywhere else without getting hopelessly lost. 

“Mom thinks I’m too young.”

“Grandma gave you an egg.” She nudges him, pouting a little. Clearly jealous he got… whatever is in the egg, and she didn’t. “She thinks you can go on the challenge.”

Mom had a few choice words about _that,_ too. Words he’s not allowed to repeat.

Magnolia is from ‘another time’, when it was ‘more acceptable’ for ten year olds to embark on life-changing journeys unsupervised. There’s no legal restrictions on age - oh, no, there’d be too much public backlash to touch that social precedent yet - but most people wait. Leon doesn’t want to wait.

“Of course I can do it.” He nudges her ankle. “So don’t leave without me.”

“I won’t leave without you! Then you’d never make it past Wedgehurst.” 

He shoves her, and then they both laugh, because she’s probably right. Below them, her Yamper barks.

Leon needs to get out of here soon, if he doesn’t want to get swallowed too. He can’t imagine spending the rest of his life wrangling the flock of wooloo their family owns. Can’t imagine accompanying his mother into town and trying to auction the wool off. Can’t imagine that this is what his life amounts to, that it begins and ends in this town. For some people, it’s good - but for him, it’s just… _different._

“Besides.” Sonia starts again. “We’ve gotta prove Bailey wrong.”

Bailey, the same twelve year old who’s taken it upon himself to ‘teach them their place’ ever since the two of them scored better in the mock battles than him. Leon is from a no-name family and he lives in a no-name town, which didn't make him any happier. At least Sonia is the professor's granddaughter.

“He’s…” She leans in conspiratorially, and her voice drops to a whisper, “An _asshole.”_

During Magnolia’s stunt as a trainer, she picked up quite a few things - her tendency to mouth off was one that she never quite grew out of. Sonia inherited some of those things.

“Don’t tell my Mom I said that.”

“I won’t.” He hugs the egg closer to his chest. 

His mom ducks out of the front door to wave at the two of them.

“Sonia! Your grandma just called, she wants you home before dark!”

She looks up at the sky and blows her bangs out of her face. “Aw, man. That sucks. I guess I gotta go.”

She leaps off the wall and Zeus weaves between her legs. “Bye!”

He waves as she goes.

The egg moves ever so slightly in his grip. 

“Leon! Can you help me clear the table?”

“Yeah! Coming!”

He slides carefully off and trots inside.

The egg turns out to be a charmander.

It happened sometime during the night, and he’s _so_ lucky that the main elemental starters are relatively low maintenance. Some of them need help - sometimes wooloo can’t quite get out and you have to break the shell for them (you can’t let the dubwool do it, he learned the hard way, because eggs break easily), but it seems charmander had no problems. He wakes up at three in the morning to find smooth, white eggshell pieces scattered across the throne of blankets the egg had been propped on.

On the cushion it sits, blinking big black eyes at him. 

And then it sets the blankets on fire.

She has a strange fascination with the fireplace. She sits and pokes at the wood and the crackling coals. He’s terrible at coming up with nicknames - he’s the reason why half the wooloo are just named after food (Cupcake and Cherry are prime examples). Mom suggests ‘Hearth’. Sonia leans forward with _way_ too much excitement and declares, _“Vesta.”_

And she seems so sure of it, so, “Vesta!”

Vesta turns curiously. 

“You like that?”

She makes a hissing sound like popping coals, and he coos. 

Vesta it is.

Vesta decides to take personal issue with Bailey’s face, and decides to make this public knowledge by launching herself at him. Violently. To be fair, he did instigate, but Vesta just doesn’t… like people. Not like Zeus likes people. She can be friendly, she just chooses not to.

And it was kinda mean, sure, but Leon laughed. It took Sonia a good ten minutes to calm down, she was laughing so hard she was crying. 

Vesta looked very proud of herself.

Neither Bailey nor the principal are as amused. 

And it just so happens that Bailey is Chairman Rose’s nephew. Because of course he is. And so Chairman Rose _comes to Postwick._ Because of _course_ he does. 

(He's told that the Chairman makes his rounds every other year looking for promising trainers to sponsor. The way he says _'charity cases'_ makes his stomach turn). 

And his career is over before it’s even started.

Chairman Rose is shorter than he looks on TV - but otherwise the same, right down to the suit, and he has a different proposal.

“The two of you both have pokemon, don’t you?” He asks, and out of the corner of his eye, the principal’s eyes widen, and he’s not entirely sure why. “How about you settle this like trainers - with a battle.”

If no one else, Vesta seems to accept this alternative. She’s hanging off his shoulders, her tail curled carefully around his arm, the burning tip held away from his arm as not to burn him. 

“You can beat him.” Sonia says, so he shrugs.

“Okay. I accept.”

Vesta makes quick work of Bailey’s timburr. 

He tells her which way to dodge and how to do it, and when to retaliate. She just learned ember, and she’s not quite good at it yet, but timburr are slow and no matter how sloppy the attack is objectively, it can’t escape the flames. 

The battle ends with Leon the uncontested winner.

Rose smiles on the sidelines.

“Young man.” Rose calls. His assistant - Oleana - trails behind him, a little like the ghosts from the Weald. “You said your name was Leon?”

He turns. Vesta shifts restlessly in his arms, glaring at him through narrowed eyes. She’s also _bitey._ The professor says that’s normal for that age, and that she’ll grow out of it. That would be all well and good if his hands weren’t covered in bandages. He’s considering using oven mitts to handle her.

“Um, yes sir.”

“Your battle was exemplary.” He says, charismatic as ever. Leon preens at the complement. “I heard the professor gave you that charmander not too long ago.”

“Two weeks.” He says. “I mean, I hatched her two weeks ago.”

She nips at his fingers. He scratches under her chin to distract her. He’d really prefer if she kept her mouthful of razor blades to herself, thank you very much.

“Only two weeks?” He raises an eyebrow. “You two seem very attached.”

Well, she was currently trying to deprive him of his fingers, so. Very attached indeed.

“Hey, watch your tail.” He whispers. She cautiously moves her tail away from the flowering ivy covering this side of the school building.

“You have a lot of potential.” Rose continues. “I’m very impressed by your battling skill. Have you ever considered taking the gym challenge?”

He perks up. “You think I could?”

Rose leans closer. “I think you could win. If you’re interested… I’d be happy to endorse you.”

This… _cannot_ be happening. Not to him. The only thing that could make this moment better was if Vesta would stop chewing on his fingers. 

“I - I - yes! Yes, I’m interested!”

“Then it’s settled.” He smiles. 

Leon walks away with a letter in his bag, and it’s the most valuable thing he’s ever held in his entire life. He’s probably going to lose it, or Vesta’s going to shred it by accident, or something like that, because he does that a lot, and Vesta likes clawing things up, like his curtains, and his mom’s favorite scarf. 

“Sonia’s gonna lose her _mind.”_ He whispers.

Vesta squeaks happily.

Mom isn’t thrilled, but she doesn’t have the energy to argue, really. She’s working two jobs since Dad died and they still just scrape by sometimes, and she doesn’t really want him to go, but she doesn’t want him to be unhappy here, either.

Leon is an open flame, he can’t help but burn. 

When he shows her the chairman’s endorsement, there’s not much she can do but agree. After all, cost is no longer an issue - Chairman Rose has already agreed to pay for whatever equipment he needs, and that gets him out of her hair, and it gets him a shot at his dream.

The next day, Sonia comes into town waving an endorsement letter of her own - written by her grandmother, even though the competition doesn’t even start for another month.

“We’re doing this!” He says, swinging Vesta around in his arms. “Now you can bite all the pokemon you want, and not me!”

She exhales smoke and nips at his hair.

“You two stay together, you hear me? You’ve just got each other.” Mom says. Vesta squeaks. Mom smiles. “And your teams.”

His mom hugs them both. Sonia’s grip is almost stronger, her arm slung around his shoulders as she yanks him closer. “We promise! We’ll be fine!” 

“Yeah, Mom!” He agrees quickly. “We’ll beat all the gyms!”

“And then I’ll become the champion.” Sonia grins at him out of the corner of her eye. Zeus barks impatiently. “We gotta go our we’re gonna miss the train!”

Sonia starts to drag him down the path. He knows that he’ll get lost otherwise. 

“Stay safe!” Mom yells. Magnolia chuckles and lifts a hand to wave. “Good luck, children!”

Leon waves back and Sonia smiles so big her face might break in half. They’re on their own now, they’re on their very own journey, and that cobweb of abstract claustrophobia is beginning to ease, replaced by the thrill of excitement, of the unknown, spread in front of them. They have the world for their picking.

They stop at the train station - this is the only way to Motostoke, and he wants to spend some time in the wild area and if he ever wants to get out Sonia has to go with him. 

They present their tickets and slide in the nearest booth. He’s never been on a train before, but Sonia has - to see her dad up in Wyndon. He owns a business there, he thinks. 

The floor rumbles as it starts to move, and he shuffles. Vesta hisses at the floor, and hisses at everyone that passes too close.

He pats her head. “Be friendly.”

Sonia wrinkles her nose. “I think we chose the wrong name. Your lizard has never been friendly or welcoming in her entire life.”

Zeus makes a noise of agreement from her lap.

“That’s not true, is it?” He scratches her neck. “You’re nice to me.”

“She bites you all the time!”

“Out of _love.”_

She giggles and leans back against the seat, and stares out the window as they pass by the rolling hills.

He watches the hills flatten out, watches the countryside become dotted with trees, watches as he leaves everything he’s ever known behind him.


	2. Chapter 2

They spend the first half of their morning hiding behind a wall of thick shrubbery as a _very_ angry pangoro stomps around the field, sending the rest of the wildlife scattering. A pack of pancham follows eagerly in its wake, baring blunt teeth at the stufful and electrike waiting crouched in the grass. 

Vesta hisses, steam pouring out of her jaw. Leon grabs her before she has the chance to leap out and start a fight she won’t win.

“Pancham are fair game.” He tells her. “Rampaging pangoro are _not.”_

She evolved into a charmeleon not too long ago. She’s too big to sit comfortably on his shoulders, but that doesn’t mean she won’t try. She’s still growing into her claws and not quite used to the different distribution of weight. She’s bulkier now, can tank more hits, but all things come at a price, and she isn’t as easily maneuverable anymore.

He hasn’t caught anything yet, but Sonia found a growlithe - she says she plans to use it on the first gym leader, a grass-type user, since she doesn’t have the type advantage. She’d said, with an eyebrow raised, _you could probably sweep him with Vesta alone._

He doesn’t doubt it. Vesta is very battle-happy.

He glances up through the foliage as the last of the pancham retreat into the forest, before grabbing Sonia’s wrist and yanking her up before they both start sprinting in the other direction.

Eventually they come to a halt, doubled over as they catch their breaths.

Sonia wipes sweat off her jaw. “Where are we?”

“You’re asking _me?”_ He blanches. 

The trees are thicker this way, the grass tall enough that it sways around his knees. That part is a little like home. The conspicuous lack of wooloo is not.

“I can’t believe you got us _lost.”_

“We were about to be killed by a pangoro!”

“How are we gonna find Motostoke now?” She stands on her tiptoes, but the tree coverage is too heavy, and they’re reluctant to turn back in the direction of the pangoro. Normally they’d be able to see the dark, regal walls of the city towering over the wild area, and that should’ve been enough to get them through. 

She sighs. “It loops around the lake, so I guess we should just follow that…” 

Eventually daylight fades into evening. The sun is a flaming coin over the horizon, plunging the sky into the bruised tones of a wildfire. The sunset over the lake is stunning and Sonia’s eyes light up, taking out her phone to take a picture. “My Mom asked me to send her pictures.” She explains, squealing as she captures a Gyarados breaching the surface. 

“You should try catching that.” She grins. 

Leon hugs Vesta to his chest. “That would _eat_ us.”

Vesta glares at it anyway.

“You really should catch something while we’re out here, though.” She points out. “You can’t take on the gym challenge with just Vesta.”

If he tried hard enough, he definitely could, but he’s not going to argue.

It takes them another five minutes of walking to realize they have a guest.

Vesta snaps her jaws.

“Stop that.” He pokes her nose. “Be nice.”

She snaps playfully at his fingers instead, but stops trying to intimidate the hesitant duskull trailing behind him.

“Hi!”

The duskull curiously floats out from its hiding place behind the tree. It hesitates for a second, before venturing a little closer.

“It likes you.” Sonia whispers loudly.

He holds a hand out, and cold static prickles in his palm as it gets closer. “I’m Leon. Do you want to come with me?”

The answer is yes, apparently, because he catches it almost instantly.

“I have to name it now.” He says. 

“Don’t look at me. I can’t name all of them for you.” 

“You could.” He disagrees, and presses the button to release him. “Hi again.” He sits cross legged while Vesta and their new team member get acquainted. “You want a name, right?”

Duskull watches him expectantly.

“Okay, um…” He leans back. “How about… Pepper?”

_“Pepper?”_ Sonia sputters.

“He’s the right color!” He defends, and Pepper makes a noise of agreement, so it’s settled.

“I take it back. You should let me name all of your pokemon.”

“Too late now.” He declares. “Weren’t you worried about getting to registration on time? We gotta go!”

“You’re right!” She drags him to his feet, and they start running.

Motostoke is big and not like anything he’s ever seen before. It has an industrial flare to it, full of dials and levers and cranes dangling from atop high-rise buildings. Shops are crammed up against each other, most leaving little room for narrow alleys to snake between. High-end boutiques and department stores and restaurants line the streets, each one of them probably more expensive than he ever has been or ever will be able to afford. Hot steam blows up from the grates on the streets, paved with dark brick, shimmering with recent rainfall. The gutters are flooded. 

Even in the evening, the city is buzzing with light and activity. The towers in the distance are lit up. The train tracks, suspended on rusted pillars, flash with light every time one rattles by. The tickets that get you straight to Motostoke were much too expensive for them, though, and the wild area was a good way to train, so it was worth the trip. 

The most jarring thing is probably the sheer amount of people there are, though. Walking through the street, lounging on the bridge over the river, talking as they walk in and out of stores, a careful, balanced fluctuation.

Sonia tugs them through the street. “Where is the elevator?” She hisses. “We didn’t get this far just to miss registration!”

“You guys need help?”

The two of them whirl around to see a boy approaching, dressed casually in a dark hoodie with _Pokeathlon_ written across the chest in metallic orange letters, a series of interconnected hoops beneath it. At his side a girl with long, dark hair, part of it pulled up into a bun.

Leon picks Vesta up before she has the chance to ruin this for them. 

“I’m Raihan, this is Nessa.” The boy introduces himself. He’s at least a head taller than Leon, and the girl, Nessa, is only a couple inches behind him. “We’re gym challengers. You two look a little turned around.”

“We are too!” Sonia says. “We’re a little lost, though.” She glares at Leon out of the corner of her eyes and he smiles sheepishly. 

“We can show you.” Raihan offers, and begins to lead them towards the stadium.

“Hey,” Nessa starts, “Aren’t you the professor’s granddaughter? Sonia?” 

“Ah, yeah.” Sonia drags her fingers through her hair. It’s hard to escape the long shadow her grandmother casts - she has big shoes to fill. “That’s me.”

Nessa glances at him, though, as if trying to place him. She’s already made the connection that there’s no resemblance between them whatsoever, so he isn’t a sibling she’s just never heard of.

Sonia must catch her staring, because she steps in front of him a bit. “He’s my friend from back home. His name's Leon.”

Home in the middle of nowhere.

He’s a no-name, right. 

“Ah, yeah. Big cities take some getting used to.”

Raihan turns to look at him, and his eyes drop not-so-subtly to Vesta.

“Charmeleon aren’t too common around here.” He says, gesturing. “How’d you get ‘er?”

“Present from the professor.” He says. Raihan extends a hand to scratch under her chin and she leans happily into the touch.

“I think you’re the first person she hasn’t bitten.” He mumbles. Raihan grins. “I know my way around dragons.” He releases a trapinch onto the street. 

“Woah. Where’d you get a trapinch?”

“My dad owns a conservation for dragon types.” He says. “They’re all over our house.”

Leon grins. “We just have wooloo at home.”

“If you’re from way out it makes sense if you can’t find your way around a city.”

“Ah, no, that’s… just me.”

Raihan laughs, and Leon isn’t sure he realizes how bad it is.

In the distance, the stadium looms, bearing flags for each of the gyms. 

Excitement has a vice grip on his chest. His ribs are bound to his lungs. Some of that must spill onto his face, because Raihan laughs. 

“C’mon already,” Sonia says. “We’re gonna be late!”

Being on the pitch is surreal.

The crowd roars around him, one living, breathing thing. There are bright camera flashes from every direction. The earth seems to rumble with the sound. Music and commentary booms over the speakers, confetti explodes in the air. 

In the heat of things, there’s no room to be scared. There’s thousands of eyes on them and none at all, and all Leon can focus on is the steady march of his heart, the vibration of the speakers through the ground. 

The gym leaders spearhead the charge.

The trainers are scattered across the pitch. Artificial turf crunches under his heel. 

Sonia’s eyes are wide and terrified next to him. Raihan and Nessa, on the other hand, bask in it. A camera flashes, momentarily silhouetting his profile in light. 

“Awesome, right?” His voice is almost drowned out by the crowd. The electric blue of his eyes is accented by the lights. 

His smile is contagious, and he finds himself sharing it. 

Chairman Rose stands before them, his image broadcast up on the screen.

The gym challenge has begun. 

On Route 3, he and Sonia tag-team two siblings who also happen to be taking the gym challenge with Zeus and Vesta. Sonia high fives him, and then they start through the tall, dry grass. A nervous vulpix weaves between his legs and Zeus tries to chase it, and then Sonia is sent, screaming, sprinting down the path as an overzealous zigzagoon chases her down the route. By the time he catches up, she's already caught it, her hair slipping from her ponytail and her new coat - beige, expensive, sporting pockets big enough for Zeus to fit inside - smudged with dirt.

"Not," She hisses, "A _word."_

He clamps his mouth shut to try and stop laughing, but his trembling is giving him away. "What're you gonna name him?"

_"Asshole."_

They set up camp, and he lets Vesta and Pepper out. Zeus is quick to join them, but Zigzagoon is kept firmly in his ball.

Sonia smooths her map down on a relatively flat rock. "We still got awhile to go. The mines are next, and then Route 4..."

Leon glances at her while coaxing a fire to life. Black coals flare to life as Vesta lights a spark, and he opens a package of noodles. Leon isn't allowed to touch the map because he'll... ruin it by association, or something.

She sighs, and rolls it back up, tying it with a rubber band. "We'll probably get there by tomorrow."

While he tends to the food, Sonia throws around a ball that Zeus and Vesta. Unfortunately for Vesta, Zeus is much better adept at catching.

He carefully removes the pot from the fire. "Food's done."

Turffield is a quaint town, surrounded on all sides by hectares of farmland and golden stalks of wheat and corn. Everything is fenced in, and navigation becomes more tricky, maneuvering through and around the gates to find the town buried in the swaying sea of cash crops. Turffield could’ve been just as unimpressive and forgettable as Postwick, but it happens to be located snugly inside the first circuit, not to mention the ruins Sonia keeps talking about. 

This route is an especially long one - the mines being the longest stretch. It was hard not to get lost, the only light being the lanterns hung on wires nailed into the cracks in the stone for the employees, and the iridescent glow of gemstones. There was also the occasional spot of bioluminescence attached to the rocks to help guide them. 

Following the rails had been fun. Getting lost in the tunnels was less fun. 

_“Finally.”_ Sonia says, combing her bangs out of her eyes and grimacing at the length, and mumbles something about finding a hairdresser.

“We gotta go see the ruins.” Her face lights up. “Grandma told me to go see them.”

Leon doesn’t know what’s so exciting about a bunch of rocks, he’d much rather go right for the gym, but she seems interested, so he tags along.

The hill gives him a bad feeling.

The drawing is disconcerting in ways it shouldn’t be. The same unnerving chill shoots down his spine, more sudden than it is when he spends time around the Weald. That feeling is more the slow, suffocating type. The gradual rousing of an illness that had seemed benign. Poignant, overwhelming, all at once. This is like a knife between the ribs.

Sonia frowns. “... what do you think it is?”

Leon shrugs. “Does it matter?”

She leans over the metal plate fused to the railing. “An ancient depiction of the darkest day…” She recites. She seems no more content than she had been before. “C’mon, let’s go get our schedules from the stadium.”

Pepper floats between them and stares at the ruins, lopsided monoliths of stone rising from the ground like jagged teeth. There are pictures carved into them, archaic, esoteric symbols woven around its surface. Something long and reptilian looks down upon a cowering crowd.

“What’s wrong?”

Pepper makes a sound like chiming bells, before drifting away. He and Sonia exchange glances, and then make their way to the gym.

The Turffield gym is big and crowded and loud. There are spectators hanging around the lobby, waiting for the next battle slot. This gym always has the most challengers, and therefore the busiest. Sometimes you have to wait days for a time slot to open up. Sonia calculates that their matches will probably be sometime tomorrow. The turf is replaced every week or so, unless it’s otherwise compromised. This is low-level, though, so he doubts they have much to worry about.

The lady at the desk is dressed in the signature green uniform. She smiles brightly at the two of them.

“Registration?” She chirps. He hands over his papers and she enters something into her computer. Her fingers stall on the keyboard. “Charmander line? Is that right?”

“It is.” He confirms. “I have all her paperwork-”

“Oh, no, it’s okay, honey, I was just making sure. They’re pretty uncommon here.” She resumes her work before coming up with a timetable. 

“Here’s your number.” She hands him a slip of paper. “Your match begins at two tomorrow, don’t be late.”

“Thanks.” He says hurriedly, and leaves the gym as soon as possible.

“So,” Sonia kicks her heel across the water. “What’s your plan?”

A few feet away, Nym, Sonia’s growlithe, wrestles with Vesta in the dirt. 

The stadium looms at their back. Leon’s match is in an hour. 

“Plan?”

“For beating the gym.”

He shrugs. “I dunno. I’ll figure something out.”

He opens his arms, and Vesta barrels into him with enough force to nearly knock him over. 

Sonia huffs. “You two are impossible.”

When Vesta dynamaxes for the first time, he feels the drop in his chest, like he’s freefalling. There’s a humming in his jaw, ozone behind his teeth. The stadium is awash with violet light. Vesta’s roar shakes the ground and the crowd cheers. 

A great torrent of flames erupts from her open jaws, nearly white-hot, molten orange flickering at its edges. The barrage of razor sharp leaves are incinerated on contact, burned to ash. Heat washes over him, feverish and burning. Embers float lazily in the air as Roselia collapses in a great flash of sparks and light, reverting to its original size, before being recalled. The crowd roars.

He wrestles with the euphoria for a moment before the sensation fades, and Vesta sits in a cradle of sparks and smoke and light. Smoke pours from her jaws and she leaps into his arms.

“Ow- you’re still hot!”

The gym leader chuckles, and extends a hand. Leon adjusts Vesta so he won’t drop her when he takes it. 

“It was a good battle.” She smiles. “You’ve earned my badge.”

He fits it into the circlet. Vesta looks curiously over his shoulder at it, tilting her head. 

“Thank you.” He smiles back. 

The walk back to the locker rooms is entirely too long, with the entire stadium watching him go. 

He collapses on a bench, back pressed to a wall of lockers, and then almost passes out.

“You have to be more careful!” Sonia hisses, passing him a water bottle. The static from earlier hasn’t faded, buzzing down his spine like a procession of ants. The post-workout muscle ache pulls in his arms. “Dynamaxing is _tiring._ Grandma talks about it all the time, don't you ever listen?” She continues without giving him the chance to answer. “Being so close to that energy all the time messes you up! You’ve gotta get used to it!”

“Is that why you made us stand near all those dens?”

_“That’s not the point!”_

He rubs the nape of his neck sheepishly. “Sorry, sorry. I forgot. But I’m fine!”

She just shakes her head. “You guys are hopeless.”

She looks like she’s trying to be mad, but she’s just missing the target. The edge of her mouth threatens to quirk up into a smile, so she shakes her head. “My match is coming up soon. They have to clean it up since you two tore up the turf.”

“Vesta, be more careful of your claws.”

She croons. 

Sonia doesn’t look impressed. “Alright, you two. We’ve got twenty minutes, get out of my locker room. Don’t get lost trying to get to the bleachers.”

“Okay, okay, I’m going. And I’ll try not to.” He pauses at the door. “Good luck!”

A little town like Turffield doesn’t have that much to talk about, so when the season for challenges comes around, the news is everywhere. People on the streets wave at them or congratulate them. Some ask to see Vesta, though she’s usually out with them whenever they go anywhere. 

They’re packing up their hotel room. The next destination is the Hulbury gym.

“You’re gonna have to do something about your team.” Sonia informs him, shoving her shampoo back in her bag. “Vesta isn’t gonna be able to do anything about water types.”

“I could teach her thunder punch.”

She yanks at the zipper. “You can’t be serious.”

Yeah, having her battle probably isn’t the best idea.

He sighs. “Okay, I should probably catch something else, then.”

Vesta huffs. 

“Okay.” She tugs her backpack over her shoulders. “We can go now. You wanna look back on route 4? I know there are some electric types in there. Oh, I think there’re Pumpkaboo too, if you want a grass type.”

He opens his mouth, ready to reply, when an employee rushes out of the mines. Her bright, reflective vest immediately keys them into her profession. 

"You kids - you're trainers, aren't you?"

"I - yeah-" Sonia stutters.

"Something exploded near the power plant." She points with a gloved hand towards a collecting storm of violet clouds. "I don't know what they're doing over there but something got out, and none of us could stop it-"

Over the top of the mine, something is towering over them. Slow moving. The ominous gathering of clouds follows after it. 

Oh, boy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the gym leaders there are gonna have to be stand-ins because they're all really young right now (except for Opal, Melony, and Kabu). None of the current gym leaders will have any real focus except for the canon ones, and the canon gym leaders will eventually come back into the story. (I mean then again they made a 10yo champion so I guess anything's possible).
> 
> I was looking at Leon's team and I was like... how did he beat any of the gym leaders almost his entire team is late-game or not accessible in early routes, so unless he really did just use his charizard to beat all of them I'm not sure how he did it (if anyone was gonna take on a water type gym with a charmeleon, it would be Leon). So I'm gonna give him some other pokemon, but I have a plan as to what happens to them after so his main team comes through.
> 
> I want to make Rose more of a villain because the evil team was a bit underwhelming. If he's doing research into something as volatile as dynamaxing then I'm gonna guess there were some hitches along the way.


	3. Chapter 3

The dynamax is something Leon’s never seen before.

This isn’t saying much, necessarily, but it does mean he isn’t sure what the best way of going about the battle is. Serpentine, jasmine-green. Violet storm clouds swirl ominously overhead. The energy builds in the air like static, heavy and omnipresent, pulling and pushing like the tide lapping at the beachfront.

“That’s a _dreepy.”_ Sonia says. “But how did one get all the way out here?”

“Doesn’t matter. What type is it?”

“Um, dragon-ghost, I think?”

“You _think?”_

“I’m thinking!” She scowls, frustrated and flustered in equal parts. “Yeah, yeah, it is. Grandma studied these. C’mon!”

Vesta knows dragon breath.

“Is there a power spot around?”

“There should be. It hasn’t gotten very far.”

The bracelet on his wrist hums with ambient energy. The power spot isn’t particularly strong, and it certainly isn’t stable, but no more so than the average den. The problem here was that there isn’t supposed to be a natural power spot - the ones scattered around the wild area were fleeting, sure, but the energy always pooled in that specific area. 

Vesta appears on the field in a flash of light, craning her neck to look up at the dreepy that’s only now noticing them. The flame on her tail flickers.

“Alright.” The energy flashes over his skin like lightning, gathering in the conduit on his wrist. 

Vesta dynamaxes for the second time in as many days, which is probably not great for either of them, but… drastic measures.

Sonia calls out Zeus.

“I can paralyze it!” She calls, and with Zeus on her heels runs to distract it. 

Vesta towers over them both, blue light crackling behind her jaws. Before she can get the attack in, a geyser of dark light, thick like ink, erupts beneath her, knocking her back. 

“It’s faster?” He whirls around while she regains her footing, still cradling the beginning of her attack between her jaws. In his peripheral vision, he sees Zeus launch himself, short fur standing on end with static, at its tail. 

“Now’s your chance!”

A storm of energy builds up around her, before catching dreepy in a cyclone of wind. There’s enough force that he’s nearly pushed back. He digs his heels in and blinks away the stinging in his eyes.

“Leon, catch it now!” Sonia yells. 

He doesn’t have the time to wonder if he _can_ catch it. It might be too high level, but the only other alternative is to let it stomp around the route and crush underfoot whatever unfortunate soul found itself in its path. 

Vesta stumbles back a step, shaking off the last of the attack. 

The ball enlarges with light, and he throws it. When it hits the ground, the impact travels up his legs. He watches it roll once, twice, three times -

And it clicks.

Vesta reverts to her normal size right then, staggering back as the supplemental energy disappears. He catches her and they both go falling back into the dirt.

“Ow.” He says, and lays there for a moment. “You’re _heavy.”_

The crunch of boots. Sonia leans over him, blocking out the sun. “Is she okay?”

“She’s fine.” He grumbles. “I think she broke my rib, though.”

“She did _not,_ you drama queen.” She rolls her eyes, and offers a hand. She crouches back on her haunches, rolling her weight back to her heels. “You should go get it.”

He forces himself upright with a groan. They’ve amassed a bit of an audience - he recognizes a few gym challengers among them. He ventures closer to the epicenter of the damage - a crater of displaced dirt and grass. 

“Well.” Sonia says after a second. “I guess that means you can keep it.”

He rolls it over in his palm. “You think?”

“I mean, releasing it here would probably wreck the ecosystem, so I wouldn’t recommend it.”

He grimaces.

“I’m more worried about the factory, though.” She squints through the smoke coverage. “You think everyone’s alright?”

From what he can see, one of the wings is collapsed. Burning metal, heated into melting steel, sticks out from the side of the building like crooked teeth. A radiator hums and sputters. 

“Should we help?” She pauses. “Can we help? That’s one of Mr. Rose’s buildings. They probably have, like, protocol for that, right?”

“I mean… probably?”

“Yeah. It’s fine.” She grabs his arm. “C’mon, if we don’t get to Hulbury quick we’re gonna have to wait forever for a gym match.”

The call comes from Rose a few hours later.

He struggles to adjust Tiamat on his lap to keep him in the shot. He’s decidedly uncooperative, squirming and trying to bite him and Vesta. She’s not very fond of their new teammate. 

“-impressive to have caught it.” Rose says. Tiamat tries to chew on the edge of his phone. Leon really hopes he doesn’t look quite as dishevelled as he feels. “We’re collaborating with Professor Magnolia to capture the energy expelled during Dynamaxing. That dreepy must’ve been one of the test subjects. Usually we can keep the phenomena contained, but - well, accidents happen.”

The barbed wire of anxiety winds around his throat. “Um - is it okay that I caught him? Because we can bring him back if you need-”

“No, no, don’t worry about it.” He smiles. “You managed to catch him - I think that qualifies you to keep him.”

“Okay. Thank you, sir.”

“Good luck, Leon.”

The screen goes dark.

“See?” Sonia leans over his shoulder. Tiamat tries to eat her hair. “I told you it would be fine.”

“Y’know…” Sonia says after a minute. “I think you have too many ghost types.”

“Hmm?”

She gestures to his team. He supposes she might have a point. Between Pepper, Tiamat, and Rosy, the pumpkaboo he caught on Route 4, three quarters of his team are currently ghost types. He plans to return Rosy, though, because although she agreed to help him with the gym match, she isn’t a particularly enthusiastic fan of battling. Not the way Vesta and Tiamat are.

Speaking of, Tiamat is too high levelled for him to properly control, at the moment. 

He makes a swipe at Vesta’s food, which has her growling. Tiamat, in true ghost-type fashion, snickers, laughing silently as he darts in and out of her personal space.

“He’s trying to rile you up.” He tells her. “Don’t stoop to his level.”

Tiamat leaps forward and steals his hat.

_“Hey.”_

He reaches for him before he can get too far away, holding him tight to his chest. 

Sonia snorts. 

“Well, maybe ghost types just like me.”

She squints. “... why?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Tiamat stretches to grab the edge of the tablecloth, yanking it off the picnic table and bringing everything else crashing down with it. Leon drops him and he drifts off to terrorize the wildlife some more. 

“You.” He says. “Are the _worst.”_

Hulbury is a pretty town. Hulbury would be a prettier town if it wasn’t pouring rain. 

They’re drying off under the overhang of the gym. The leader is, apparently, nowhere to be found. Sonia is trying, futilely, to wring out her hair. They’re both soaked to the bone. His shirt sticks uncomfortably to his back and shoulders. Sonia’s jacket must be a hundred pounds.

Rain sloshes through the gutters, deep enough in some places that it would reach his ankles. The streets are all filled with water, turned to black canals running through the town. The torrential downpour hums a metallic symphony on the roof above and the wind carries on it seasalt.

“I can’t even see anything.” She mutters. “And they want us to look for him? Isn’t that the gym trainers job?”

Out of his four team members, of course it’s Tiamat who doesn’t mind the rain and not someone more even-tempered. “Maybe Tiamat’ll find him.”

“He’s more likely to eat him, even if he could find him.”

He sighs, and combs his bangs out of his face.

“You look like a drowned purrloin.” Sonia points out, like she isn’t just as soaked as he is. 

He kicks water at her, and she yelps.

“We might as well go. We can’t really get more soaked than we already are.”

Sonia sighs. “I guess.” She glances down at Zeus, who is entirely unbothered by the water, which is a strange trait for an electric type to have. “When we find him, I give you permission to eat his arrokuda.”

Serrated teeth of lightning cleave the storm clouds in two. Thunder rolls after, shaking the sky.

Tiamat _takes off down the street._

“Are you being serious right now?” Leon runs into the rain after him, Sonia following just after. “Where are you going?!”

He leads them to the end of the street, where the waves nearly crash over the railing in their towering size. 

“What the-?”

At the top of the lighthouse, there are flashes of light behind the shadowed panels of glass. There are a few other trainers at the base of the lighthouse, staring up through the rain to watch the fight that is most definitely happening.

_“Tiamat!”_ He hisses, scanning the sparse crowd. He glances to his left, and sees none other than Nessa and Raihan. Tiamat is circling the latter, pulling at his hair. 

Sonia pinches the bridge of her nose. 

Leon is quick to drag Tiamat away before he can do any more damage. “I’m - so sorry. He’s not house trained.”

Raihan raises an eyebrow, but he’s grinning. “I can see that. You got an actual dragon this time.”

“Oh - I kinda got him on accident.”

Nessa frowns. “How do you catch something on _accident-?”_

They’re interrupted by another flash of light that leaves static crackling down his arms. Zeus barks, his fur bright with charged electricity.

“What’s going on?”

“There’s a toxicity that guards the town and the lighthouse.” He gestures to the top of the building. “Apparently something came off the coast a little while ago, called up a storm and everything. The gym leader’s up there with it, I think.”

A bolt of lightning shatters the glass in one of the windows, and it comes raining down. Raihan grabs him and Nessa and drags them both away from it. There’s another pause, and then a Crawdaunt leaps from the window and onto the ground, nearly crushing two people. 

_“Shit.”_

It turns towards one of the gym challengers, brandishing its pincers. 

Leon calls out Rosy just as Raihan calls out his trapinch. A second later, Zeus is behind them. Nessa wards off the surrounding people. 

“Grass knot!”

Thick vines burst from beneath the brick to wrap around crawdaunt’s claws. Sand tomb obstructs its vision a moment later. While it pulls against the vines, Zeus leaps forward to paralyze it.

From the shattered window overhead, the toxicity leaps to the ground, sparking with electricity, to finish it off. It glances up to look between them, and the gym leader is soon to follow, climbing down the winding spiral staircase inside the lighthouse to look at them.

“Good job.” He addresses the toxicity. “I can take care of this.”

It looks between him and the crowd suspiciously, but turns and resumes its position at the top of the half-destroyed lighthouse.

The rain seems to lessen a little, but not my much.

He looks them over, smoothing his dark hair back with a sigh. “Were you the ones who helped restrain it?”

Tiamat hisses.

Luckily, he laughs, and doesn’t threaten to rehome him, or send him back or something. That would be a strike on his card. Too many strikes and you couldn’t compete. “Well, thank you.” He leans down to look at the unconscious crawdaunt. “Domesticated…” He mumbles.

The claws aren’t curved the same way as the ones from the wild area, with their jagged, tapered claws, meaning that it’s been bred and handled by a trainer. 

It doesn’t look like it has an ID, though. That might mean it had been released here, which he’s pretty sure is illegal.

He catches it, and straightens with a sigh. “You four - you’re gym challengers, right? After the storm started they postponed all my matches until tomorrow and it’ll take some time for them to figure out the brackets again. We can probably squeeze you guys in.”

Sonia lights up. “Really? Thank you!”

“It’s the least I can do, seeing as you all got caught up in the storm for this.”

He leads them back to the gym, and they spend another twenty minutes sitting in the lobby soaking up the warmth and toweling off their hair. Sonia’s shed the jacket because it’s less of a jacket and more of a water-retaining towel at this point, and her towel is thrown over her head.

“Hey.” Raihan says. “So, what’s your team like now?”

Leon doesn’t know if they’re allowed to have their teams in the lobby, but they’re all small enough that it probably won’t matter all that much.

He introduces all four of them (even though he glares at Tiamat while doing so).

“Rosy is probably gonna go back home after this battle is over.” He pats her head. 

“Nice. You like ghost types?”

“Uh. I think it’s just a coincidence, but you’re the second person to point that out.”

He shrugs. “Most of my team are dragon types.”

As Leon recalls his team (save for Vesta, who is much more willing to be out now that the rain is gone), Raihan shows him his. A trapinch, goomy, flapple, and boldore. 

“We should battle after this.” He offers.

Vesta practically beams at the prospect.

He glances at the reception desk. “Speaking of, do you know who’s going first?”

“Challenger 006?”

Well, guess he’s first then.

Raihan snorts. “Good luck.”

He turns around to grin. “I won’t need it.”

They don’t need luck. This time, Leon has a plan.

(Luck is always appreciated, though). 

Pepper takes out the krabby with a combination of confuse ray, willow wisp, and payback. He gets the same status moves on Arrokuda, switching into Rosy to finish it off with energy ball. Then comes the barasskewda. 

They dynamax at the same time. The barasskewda is faster, but can’t deal as much damage. A concentrated geyser of water builds between its jaws and fires, knocking her back. 

The battle ends when they retaliate. Gnarled roots burst from the ground, wrapping around barasskewda until the dynamax fades, and explodes in a burst of light, leaving it prone on the ground. The crowd bursts in roars and applause. There aren’t too many of them, considering the circumstances, but Leon is really just happy that they won.

Rosy reverts to normal size and he turns around to hug her. 

The gym leader approaches with a smile and extends a hand.

“It was a good battle. You’re one of the trainers endorsed by the chairman, aren’t you? I can see why.”

His smile wilts, just a tad, at the reminder of _charity case._ He knows there’s no _real_ way to gauge someone’s potential in a battle like the one he and Bailey had, and that he was probably right about the way that he had gone about getting endorsed. 

He grips his hand tightly. 

That just means he has to prove them wrong. He’s going to win the championship and show them just how much of a ‘charity case’ he is.

They leave the arena again, while the leader gets ready for his next match, and he collapses on the lobby couch. Sonia’s match is next. He’s determined to actually find the stairs this time because he almost missed her battle last time because he couldn’t find the entrance to the bleachers. 

After a minute, Raihan appears in the stairway and waves. “Leon! That was a good battle.” He nudges our shoulder. “Ours’ll be better, though.” 

He hugs Vesta to his chest again as she growls, her teeth gnashed together in what might pass as a grin.

“You think?”

“I know.” He takes the stairs by two, so Leon has to jog to catch up to compensate for the difference in stride. “Sonia told me to come get you since you’d get lost trying to get to the bleachers.”

His face burns. “I almost missed her last match ‘cuz I got lost.”

Raihan laughs, and the sound bounces around the empty staircase. “Really?”

“I’m,” He blanches, _“really_ bad with directions.”

They reach the end of the staircase and enter into the bleachers. Most of them are wet. Nessa is sitting on her towel, and waves them over. 

She crosses her arms, a smile on her face as she looks down into the pitch. “Let’s see what your friend can do.”

Sonia wins, obviously.

Zeus is holding an eviolite that she scammed some poor unsuspecting street vendor out of, and he’s making great use of it. He takes on all three pokemon by himself and comes out on top. Raihan’s and Nessa’s matches are similar. It ends with all of them getting the badge. 

The leader sees them off as they go, shaking his head.

“So.” Raihan grins. “About that battle?”

He smiles in return. “Whenever you’re ready.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going on a trip and won't have my computer so hopefully the next chapter will be out on the 8th or 9th. If anyone comments and I don't respond I'm not trying to ignore you I just don't have wifi
> 
> -I gave Raihan a flapple because there's no way he'd beat a water gym leader with that team


	4. Chapter 4

The battle is two-on-two, because Tiamat won’t listen (he has, in fact, gone on to sabotage the fight as much as possible by trying to distract him), and Rosy is resting. They’re both down to one, Vesta versus trapinch. Vesta is splattered with mud; an unfortunate consequence of fighting ground-types, one she clearly isn’t too happy with, considering the earth covering her scales is cracking with heat. They’d gotten a dragon breath in earlier to try and paralyze. The white flicker of static electricity crackles over trapinch’s shell, momentarily binding it in place.

“There! Slash!”

The earth around trapinch is soft and sinking, Arena Trap reducing the ground to rapid-moving quicksand. She can’t stay in place for too long without sinking. 

She leaps back after delivering the blow. He sees the tremble of the earth just before she lands. His eyes widen. “Vesta-!”

A cloud of dirt kicks up as Bulldoze rips through the narrow ledge of earth separating them, and she’s thrown up into the air. 

The trapinch prepares for another attack beneath, only for the lightning to seize again.

Here’s their chance. 

Blue light gathers behind her teeth, and another dragon breath is what it takes to defeat it. Vesta leaps back, almost tripping over his sneakers, rubbing furiously at her snout. He picks her up, shifting her weight to one arm so he can start working the dirt off of her scales. 

“Damn.” Raihan says, gathering trapinch up in his arms. He smooths a finger down its scales. “Hey, stop pouting. You did good.” He glances up, and offers a lopsided grin. “You guys are strong. Guess we’ll have to catch up a little, huh?”

“It was a close match.” Leon smiles. Even without the crowd roaring at his back, or the fluttering anticipation of Dynamax sparking over his skin like fire, there’s still a certain excitement that comes with battling Raihan that leaves him jittery with adrenaline. 

Sonia leaps up from the log she was sitting on, clutching Zeus to her chest. “That was awesome, guys!” She takes a minute to maneuver carefully around the dredged up earth. “Well, you probably should’ve been a little more careful than this. We better not get in trouble for this.”

Battling directly on route paths was strictly prohibited. The surrounding grass was fair game, but when battles got out of hand, they tended to tear up the routes and impede travellers, and then the rangers had to get involved to settle the displaced earth and clean up fallen trees or branches, and if they found out who did it that’d be a strike against you, too. Their fight had strayed a bit too far away from neutral territory. 

“We can clean it up.” Raihan promises, and sets trapinch on the ground to clean up the mess. He turns around, resting his hands behind his head. Above, the seemingly ever present cloud coverage sits at the horizon like a blanket of gray stretched around the sky. They aren’t heavy or dark enough to rain, but the threat still looms over them. It smells like petrichor and the long ferns swaying in the breeze drip with rainwater. 

“Nessa should be back soon.” Sonia checks her phone. The three of them slump back against the same log, turning it carefully back so as to not crush the sleeping morelull inside. She’d offered to go back into town to get lunch. 

Leon peers back down the path to see the weary, downtrodden driftwood and old shingles bleached gray, worn down by ocean salt and storms. Further, near the docks, a stout fishing boat bobs along in the critically cold water, a tangled spider web of nets twisted at its hull, nearly dwarfed by the cargo ship docked at its side. 

Raihan takes a look at Vesta. "I think she's gonna evolve soon."

"What?"

"Yeah. Look at the way her claws are growing." He takes one in his hand. "I've never raised a charizard before, but I've seen enough dragons to know that this happens when they're close to evolving. Also, her tail - the fire's looking stronger. You've probably got a little while to go, but it's definitely gonna be soon."

He blinks curiously. "Oh, I guess you're right. Are you ready to evolve?"

She croons happily.

Raihan then glances at Zeus, and then to the cord around his neck, buried in his fur, securing his eviolite.

“So you’re not planning on evolving him?”

“Nah.” Sonia leans back. “I think he likes it better like this.”

They all turn at the sound of approaching footsteps. Nessa holds two steaming paper bags in her hands. “I got lunch.”

“The best thing about this place is the food.” Nessa decides, a paper-wrapped burger in her hands. _“Definitely_ the food.”

Raihan snorts. “You lived here for what, six years, and that’s all you have to say?”

“Yes.” She replies. Leon can’t exactly blame her. Tiamat keeps trying to eat his fries. He hands one to Vesta, which she sniffs curiously. 

“You lived here?” Sonia crosses her legs. 

“Yeah, while my Mom worked as a gym trainer.”

Sonia hums. “That’s cool. Hey, if you’re heading to Motostoke, you wanna come with us?”

Nessa throws her head back. “I would love to but Mom’s making us come home and have dinner with her while we’re here.” Her eyes flick towards the pier. “I want to catch some more water types before I go, too.”

“For the next gym? It’s a fire-type one, so you should probably be fine.” Raihan says.

“Yeah, yeah, I know, but if I gotta get some more type variation on my team. I can’t be a gym leader if all my pokemon are solid water types.”

“You want to be a gym leader?”

“Yeah.” Nessa grins. “The gym here is really cool - I want to see what I can do with the layout and everything.”

You have to at least qualify for the semifinals if you want to be a gym leader, Leon is pretty sure. There are plenty of other requirements, of course, and you have to be responsible enough to handle the position in the first place, but you have to qualify using the type base of your choosing, and then you can be eligible. He’s sure the process is much more complicated than that, but that’s as much as he’s gleaned from Sonia’s rambling.

She balls up her paper bag. “Speaking of, we have to get going soon.”

She hikes her bag higher on her shoulders and brushes off her shorts. “It was nice seeing you again. Good luck with the third badge!”

“You too!” Sonia waves.

Raihan grins at him. "Next time we meet, we're gonna have another battle, and I'm gonna win."

Leon grins back. "You're on."

Then they turn back into town, and they keep waving long after they're out of sight. 

Sonia consults the map again before they go. “... we have to go through another mine again, don’t we?” She sighs, before dragging him to his feet. “Try not to get us lost this time, will you?”

The mine is buzzing with activity. He’s told this is where Kabu, the Motostoke gym leader, often trains. The gravelly dirt is uneven and poorly lit by kerosene lamps nailed into the rock walls. The reflection of richly colored gemstone and ore reflects off the clear puddles of water framing the path on either side. 

“I think your sense of direction is contagious.” Sonia groans, glancing to the nearest rail-worker to ask for directions. “You gave it to me, by, like… osmosis.”

“I don’t think that’s how it works.”

“Shut up.”

The rail worker misinterprets their intentions and they end up in a battle. They eventually do get their directions, though, and end up at the other side of the mine, unscathed. 

“Ugh.” Sonia rubs her eyes. “It’s so _bright.”_

Leon lets Vesta out to play. “So the next gym is fire, right?”

“Yeah. We both need to catch something with a type advantage.” She pulls out her phone. “I know his ace is a centiskorch, and I’m pretty sure he has an Arcanine. So… a rock type would probably be best. Or a ground type…” She hums. “Let’s go find a hotel. We can figure it out tomorrow.”

The specialty store on the corner of street-wherever-they-are has a unique air of eccentricity to it. On the counter sits a skeletal tree made of twisted wire, hung with ornaments and jewelry. The shelves are lined with strange baubles, the likes of which he’s never seen. A Kantonian Meowth prawls through the aisles, hissing at them when they venture too close. 

Sonia pushes aside a box of medicinal herbs, huffing with frustration when she doesn’t find whatever it is she’s after.

“What exactly are we looking for?”

“A fire stone.” She replies tersely, looking through the collection of stones on the lowest shelf again. There’s a bin just in front of it filled with flat, sanded everstones, what looks like sharp canines wrapped on nylon cords, strings of pearls, a chipped teapot, iridescent pink scales, and more. Sonia pauses at the prism scale she finds at the bottom, and pockets it.

He stands back on his heels and waits, perusing the shelves.

On one, he finds an old, faded purple cloth, the signs of wear along its fraying edges. It has a strange feel to it. He runs his fingers over its surface and shudders.

“I’m taking this.” He announces.

Sonia glances at it. “Isn’t that a reaper’s cloth? I think you need one of those to evolve dusclops- there!” She holds up a stone, flickering with orange light, like the coals of a fire.

“C’mon!” She jumps to her feet, and in a rare moment of triumphant joy, offers to pay for his unjustly expensive ratty cloth.

The woman behind the counter pauses from the task of petting her feral-looking Meowth. 

“Oh!” She exclaims, looking to Leon. “You’re touched, aren’t you?”

“I’m - what?” He sputters. Sonia glares and shifts in front of him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“No, no. I simply mean - you, child, have experience with ghosts, yes? You sensed the spiritual energy embedded within that reaper’s cloth?”

“Um… yes…?”

“Then I have a favor to ask of you.” Her eyes dart down to the goods on the table. “Here - if you’ll do this task, you may have these for free.”

“Really?” Sonia perks up. “What is it?”

“Watchtower Ruins.” She explains in her reedy voice. “The golett and golurk are acting up. People have been reporting strange activity and property damage around there. So few trainers are receptive to ghost types - that’s why no one’s yet dealt with the situation.”

Before Sonia can deny the request, Leon pipes up: “Sure we can!”

Sonia huffs and glares down at the table. “You’ll hold those for us, right?”

“C’mon, let’s go.” Leon grabs her wrist and drags her out of the store, and pauses once they’re at the door. “Wait, I have no idea where we are.”

Sonia sighs. “Alright. Follow me.”

“Why’re you so eager to help, anyways?”

He shrugs. “I dunno. Ghost types get a bad rep, I guess. Someone else might end up doing more harm than good.”

Ghost types are more fueled by emotion than one might realize. Deep emotional gauges in the earth often produced ghost types, lingering regret and anger were two of the most common. But most of them never escalated beyond simple pranks. Ghost types can be guileful, sure, but there’s very little opportunity to study them without having someone receptive involved.

They pass the ruins, and the grass seems relatively empty. It’s mid-afternoon, so that wouldn’t really be a red flag, but-

“Hey.” Sonia says. “I think I see something moving up there.”

She turns around, only to be met by silence. The breeze rushes through the tall, swaying grass. Two glowing yellow eyes peak out at her. Her arms erupt in goosebumps. “Leon?”

He’s gone.

She turns in a full circle. No sign of him. 

She turns around to stare up at the ruins.

“Aw, shit.”

Golurk are _much_ bigger than he thought they were. 

Considering how big they are, it’s a little surprising how easy it is for one to sneak up on you. 

He sits in its massive palm as it brings him further down into the ruins, most of which are hidden under the ground. It’s dark, but there are enough ghosts drifting through the empty labyrinthe of halls that he can make out some of the carvings on the walls. 

Aw, man. He’s never getting out of here, is he?

None of them have made any move to hurt him, so at least there’s that. The golurk’s touch is almost painfully gentle - but they were made to be protectors, hadn't they?

“Um.” He cranes his neck to look back. “Where are we going?”

It rumbles, and they descend into another chamber. Parts of the walls look damaged.

At the center of the ground sits a golett. It’s injured. One of its arms is smashed up, and there’s a gash across its chest. 

He’s on his feet as soon as golurk sets him down. He looks between them.

“Wait - do you want me to… help it?”

He takes the rumble of acknowledgement as permission.

He kneels carefully in front of it, ignoring the hisses from the surrounding duskull. The arm can probably be fixed, and the chest wound will definitely heal. 

“What happened?” He asks. 

The golett only extends a hand. He takes it hesitantly, and finds the text carved into the arm. As far as he’s aware, golett were ghosts that had possessed ancient statues designed for protection. 

“El?” He asks. “Is that how you pronounce that?”

El makes a happy sound. 

He shifts, turning around to address the golurk.

“So… what's going on with you guys?”

Sonia glares down into the darkness of the ruins. She hates it here. It reminds her too much of the Weald. 

“Leon?” She calls. Her voice echoes. “Are you down there?”

She looks down at Nym. “If he makes me go in there after him, I’m gonna kill him.”

Not a few minutes later, Leon emerges from the ruins, a golett by his side and a golurk at his back.

She stumbles back, and he raises the hand that isn’t holding the golett’s. “No! No, it’s okay!”

She cautiously relaxes. “Leon…”

“I _think_ someone was messing with the ruins, which is why they were so mad, and I’m pretty sure this one got hurt because of it, or doing it, or someone left it here, I’m not sure. Its name is El and it wants to come with. I’m not exactly sure what to do but we should probably find the gym leader.”

Sonia pauses. She’s not exactly sure who’s in charge of the wild area - it’s probably under the ranger union, but since it’s closest to Motostoke and actively causing damage to the wall around the city, they _should_ be able to solve this themselves.

She glances at the golett - El. 

“Is it coming with us?”

He glances down at it. “Uh, yeah, I guess.”

The woman at the counter barely glances up at them. 

“If you’re here to book a match with the gym leader that has to be done at the stadium-”

“No! No, we’re not.” Sonia interrupts, leaning up on her toes so she can be seen over the counter. “We’re here to report something.”

The woman raises a perfectly shaped eyebrow, and doesn’t stop typing. “Yes?”

“The city is responsible for things going on in the wild area if it’s causing property damage, right?”

“Yes.”

“Well, someone vandalized the ruins or something, or hurt one of the golett, and they’re upset-”

The printer beeps, taking her attention. “I’ll relay that to Mr. Kabu.”

She disappears into the back office.

El makes a sound of confusion, like gears grinding into each other. Leon shushes it.

“So,” He rocks back on his heels. “... do you think she’s actually gonna do it, or…?”

Sonia sighs. “C’mon. New plan.”

This is the cutoff point for most trainers. Getting more than three badges is a feat - this is the gym where, historically, more than half the participants drop out. Meaning that Kabu is more likely to take them seriously if they win. Meaning that she needs a type advantage if she wants to win. So… she wants a water or rock type. A rock type might be better, just because of the four-times type advantage. She’s almost tempted to get a golett, but she doesn’t want to exacerbate whatever issue they have going on right now.

“I’m going to find a tympole.” She announces.

Leon mumbles something in return. He’s nearly swaying on his feet, the warm cloak of grogginess settled comfortably over his shoulders. Leon isn’t a morning person. Nevertheless, he followed her out at seven sharp this morning, El dutifully accompanying him. 

He’s not sure how long he stands there before finally buckling and settling back into the grass. A while away, a stufful looks at him with big, curious eyes. 

“So.” He starts. “Are you _really_ a thousand years old?”

El blinks slowly, and doesn’t otherwise react.

“Did you have, like, someone else you were supposed to protect? How’d you guys end up out here?”

“You know it can’t actually answer your question, right?” Sonia asks, coming over the top of the hill. One hand is on her hip. Behind her, a shy palpitoad peaks out from behind her legs. “This is Melody. Now. Who here’s ready to get a badge?”

The lobby is filled with nervous trainers. This is _the fight._ The one that determines whether or not they move on to the second circuit. 

“El knows rock slide?” Sonia asks, one leg kicked over the other.

“Yeah. There must’ve been another trainer…”

His slip of paper is clutched in his hand. He needs it to get onto the pitch. He’s always worried that he’s going to lose it in the brief time between check in and the actual fight.

His number flashes across the screen.

“Ready?” He asks.

El tilts its head, and then nods.

“Don’t keep me waiting!” Sonia calls.

He turns back to grin. “I won’t!”

The fight isn’t as bad as he anticipated.

Rock slide downs the fletchinder quickly, but he has to switch back into Pepper and then Vesta to avoid the arcanine’s intimidate and willow wisp, both of which will lower El’s attack and render rock slide less effective. 

Pepper confuses it first, and though it gets in a flamethrower, hot and fizzling in the afternoon sun, he counters with payback. Then he switches in Vesta, who stalls with smokescreen until it’s safe to start chipping away at the health with slash. 

Finally, the centiskorch.

When it Dynamaxes, the heat that rolls over the field is blistering. It towers over them both, and Leon can feel the sweat prickling at the back of his neck, the awed anticipation rising to his throat like smoke, a static that crawls over his fingers. 

El is soon to follow, growing ten times its size. Ambient energy crackles in the air. The pressure in his chest threatens to claw his ribcage open. He can feel the hum in his teeth, cutting up his jaw.

The centiskorch bunches in on itself, coiling tightly into convoluted loops as a pillar of fire that he can feel from the other side of the pitch builds up. El raises an arm just in time to deflect the blast, but leaves the stone singed. 

“Rock slide!”

Centiskorch is buried beneath an avalanche of crashing boulders. There’s a moment of hesitation, as the crowd’s cheers quiet, and a bright violet light washes over the stadium as it reverts to its normal size. 

The crowd cheers again, deafening.

“Congratulations.” Kabu smiles. “It was a good battle.”

Leon can barely hear himself speak over all the noise. “Thank you - um, do you think we can talk later? Something’s going on with the Watchtower Ruins. We tried to talk to a few people but we didn’t know if you heard about it.”

“I can’t say I have.” His brow furrows. “Thank you for informing me. I can certainly look into that.”

Leon lets relief wash over him, chasing the dwindling adrenaline out of his system. 

He fits his third badge into the circlet, and retreats to the locker room.

Sonia and Zeus lie at the foot of his bed, much to Vesta’s displeasure. They’ve also managed to commandeer all the blankets in the room, and are currently sitting on all of them. 

Vesta huffs.

“You’re not even supposed to be up here.” He tells her. He hasn’t forgotten about all those blankets she set on fire. 

“Three badges.” Sonia says. Her voice is breathless with disbelief. They’ve leapt over the third hurtle, and their momentum should carry them the rest of the way. In the background, the air conditioner hums. It’s not exactly hot out, but the room seems arctic in comparison. The beige curtains by the window are drawn, the kitchenette untouched. “We can go all the way.”

“That’s always been the plan.” He reminds her.

“Yeah.” She rolls over. “But I didn’t know we could actually do it. They weren’t exactly wrong - we’re kind of from the middle of nowhere.”

_“I’m_ from the middle of nowhere.” He rolls his eyes. _“You’re_ professor Magnolia’s granddaughter.”

“Sometimes I wish I was from a long line of wooloo-wrangles.” She sighs dramatically. “No big shoes to fill.”

Leon grins and throws a pillow at her. “That’s disrespectful to farmers everywhere.”

“Sorry, wooloo-wrangling is a very respectable position. Your family is probably… famous among wooloo-wranglers.”

“Good to know that I’m famous among the farming community.”

She laughs into the pillow. "You're welcome."

They're going to stay in the city until the issue with the golett and golurk is resolved, so then Sonia can evolve Nym, and then they move on to the next part of the challenge. 

He eventually gets his blankets back, and even then, he can't sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay I'm back from my trip!
> 
> -I did some worldbuilding I think. I'm a sucker for that so it's definitely gonna be in here  
> -I like golett and golurk's concept so I shoehorned them in  
> -don't worry what's going on in the ruins is relevant  
> -more Raihan and Nessa to come


	5. Chapter 5

Leon is asleep on his feet.

Kabu hadn't been lying when he’d arranged to meet them, he just hadn't expected it to be so early in the morning. He’d been woken up by knocking at the door, and Sonia was in the bathroom. That wasn’t unusual, per se, considering she was an early riser and tended to be up hours before he managed to drag himself out of bed. 

The air conditioner had rattled in the background, condensation fogging up the window with icy swirls, sputtering arctic air into the room. 

He’d just barely stumbled out of bed, nearly tripping over the oversized sweatpants swamped around his ankles, and opened the door only to find Kabu and the Ranger, who had apparently neglected to tell them when they were supposed to show up. 

The grass is studded with frost. The wild area is known for its capricious weather, but he hadn't expected such a drastic shift, considering how early in the season it is. 

Sonia points towards the towering monolith of rock in the distance. “Over there! That’s where that golurk took you, right, Leon?”

He squints in the general direction she’s pointing. “Um… yeah?”

Kabu startles. “It took you?”

Leon pulls at the drawstrings of his hoodie. “Yeah. I wasn’t paying attention, and it picked me up and took me down to the ruins.”

“It didn’t hurt you? That's odd.”

He shrugs. “They don’t seem violent.”

“No, but the duskull have a history of hypnotizing people.” His tone is dry with experience that suggests this has happened many times before. “Just a bit surprising.”

The duskull look at them with strange, candle-lit eyes as they pass. Kabu holds out a hand as they venture nearer to the golurk that protects the grounds, but when it sees Leon, the energy at its core seems to burn a little brighter, and it sits back on its haunches. 

“That’s an invitation.” The Ranger says softly. “We can go in.”

He lets out El, who makes an odd whirring noise, like twisting steel.

The dirt path turns sharply down into the earth. The energy burning at El’s core illuminates the tunnel.

“How long has this been here?” Sonia whispers furiously. “Do you think Grandma knows about this? Because if she doesn’t, she’ll lose her mind.”

She runs a nail - painted smooth, bright turquoise - into the shallow furrows of the carvings. The firefly light of duskull hover beside them, never getting close enough to touch.

“These have been here for years.” The Ranger replies cheerfully. “Way before Motostoke was founded. As far as I know no one’s allowed on the grounds since it’s considered wildlife conservation, but that doesn’t mean no one’s been down here.”

The ceiling looms close to their head. Leon doesn’t like this part. A woobat chirps at him, hidden among the stalactites. It flutters down, pressing its heart shaped nose to his forehead, before burrowing into Sonia’s hood, probably looking for warmth. She yelps, losing her balance, and it’s only Kabu that stops her from skidding down into the dirt.

“Thanks.” She smiles sheepishly.

They descend into the lowest chamber. Sonia sweeps her flashlight along the domed stone walls, covered in drawings.

“Woah.” She whispers. “Hey - this one.” She points to the biggest carving, directly across from them. A skeletal serpentine body, descending from a haze of storm clouds. The rest of the drawing is what he assumes to be golurk and golett hunched over stick-figures, protecting them.

“It kinda looks like that thing back in the Turffield ruins, doesn’t it?”

He tilts his head. He has no real propensity for either art or history - that much had been proven to him. His penchant for drawing had mostly died out once it had sunk in that he’d never get to do anything with it.

“... yes?”

“Was that a question?”

“Kids.” Kabu interjects. “I think your golett wants to show us something.”

El raises its arms to get their attention, repeating the strange noise.

Leon kneels next to it. “Sorry, sorry. We’re looking.”

El starts its careful excavation, scooping up handfuls of dirt to shovel off to the side, refusing any offers of help any of them extend. Eventually, it reaches something buried deep in the dirt.

A wishing star.

Wishing stars are rare to come by - most of the ones in circulation are sold by Macro Cosmos. He only came by his because Chairman Rose gifted it to him, while Sonia inherited her Mother’s. Since wishing stars are so few and far between, many are considered heirlooms, and trying to procure one by legal means is expensive. Most people are convinced that all naturally produced ones have been accounted for, but disrupting wildlife in conservation zones is illegal. Therefore, it isn’t out of the question to assume that looking in those places might unearth new ones.

“Someone broke in here to get to that, didn’t they.” Sonia frowns. “But - is it yours?”

El shakes its head. 

“So then why don’t you want anyone to take it?”

El can’t frown, but Leon feels the way it flickers with frustration. Ghosts latch onto negative emotions, and their own frustrations will feed into each other like a negative feedback loop. That’s what makes ghosts dangerous.

“They trespassed, right?” 

El glows with triumph at being understood.

“And… they were after this? But why are you protecting it? Do you guys use it to Dynamax or something?”

The frustration is back again, shimmering like the superheated air over open flames. 

“Well, I can get this taped off.” The Ranger says, looking up at the stone around them. “We should probably make it so no one can get in here… I don’t trust the integrity of the ceiling.” She presses her palm up against it and shakes her head. “If you’re done here, we should probably go. We’ve been in their territory long enough.”

He can feel the curious probing of ghosts at the edge of his consciousness.

“They’re getting restless.” Leon agrees.

They climb back out of the ruins, standing back to let her do her work of sealing it off.

Leon cautiously approaches the golurk, even as Sonia tears uselessly at his sleeve.

They don’t feel all that upset, and that’s probably about as good as he’s going to get.

“Sorry someone trespassed and tried to steal your wishing star.” He says. “But they’re probably gonna do surveillance for a little while, so they shouldn’t try again.” 

He turns away, and Sonia squeaks something about turning his back to a strong pokemon, but nothing makes any move to attack.

Kabu raises an eyebrow. “You seem very attuned with ghost types.”

“Ah, when I was little I used to play with the ghost types near the weald.” He smiles sheepishly. “I guess they rubbed off on me.”

“‘I guess.’” Sonia mocks. “Your eyes glow in the dark, dude.”

“They _what?”_

“I’m kidding.” She pats his shoulder. “But they are like, intensely bright. You remind me of a duskull.”

“Wow, thanks.”

“You’re welcome.” She tugs an arm around his shoulder. 

Kabu huffs a laugh. “Thank you two for your help. Both of you have the potential for greatness, and I hope that you use it. The next gym is on Stow on Side, to the West of Hammerlock. You’ll have to get through the rest of the wild area, but once you’re there, the path is fairly straightforward. Once you pass the diglett statues you’ll be there.”

“The _what_ statues?”

“You’ll know them when you see them.” There’s a ghost of a smile on his face. “Good luck, you two. Maybe we’ll see each other again in the finals.”

Leon grins. “We will.”

The woobat is still in her hood. "I think it wants to come with you."

She reaches a hand out to pet it. "You're... kinda cute. Yeah, you can come with."

It squeaks, before once again burying itself in her hood.

Sonia glances down at her phone. “Leon, we gotta go over there.” She points to the wooden bridge that crosses the lake. 

“What, why?”

“Grandma wants me to catch some krabby and send them home. She needs them for her control group or something, and I know they’re only out early in the morning or in the evening, so we gotta go. And you’re helping me. Thanks, Mr. Kabu!”

She waves over her shoulder and drags him away towards the bridge.

The wild area, if it was possible, becomes even _more_ confusing. 

They set up camp between two lofty bridges, settled close to Motostoke’s red brick wall. Leon is in charge of cooking, again, while Sonia brushes Zeus’ fur. Vesta sharpens her claws on a jagged tooth of rock.

A whirlwind tugs at the edges of their tents.

“Oh no.” Sonia says faintly. From the air, an angry sigilyph flaps its wings. The psychedelic patterns on its body are almost difficult to look at. His eyes slide away every time he tries to focus. 

While he blinks away his impending headache, Zeus launches into battle with static bristling on his fur. While the sigilyph bats him away with interlocking chains of psychic energy, he charges up, waiting for his moment to pounce, and then he pins it to the ground long enough for Sonia to lob a ball in its general direction.

It shakes, and then clicks, and they both sigh in relief. He goes to make sure the stakes are still tethering the tents to the ground.

“Why are they all so _aggressive.”_

They’ve dodged no less than three sneasel and, in a more unfortunate turn of events, a stampede of three rhyhorn. His heels ache from how much running they’ve been doing. 

All those PSAs warning budding trainers about the dangers of the wild area certainly weren’t exaggerating. If Kabu didn’t stop most of the gym challengers, then this stretch of land would. 

“Why is Vesta using that rock like a scratching post?”

He shrugs. “I think her claws are bothering her. Raihan said something about her being close to evolving soon.”

“That makes sense.” She reaches down to pick up the sigilyph’s ball. “I can use this at the fighting gym. I’m gonna name you…” She rolls it around her palm, deliberating. “Zephyr.”

Leon stifles a yawn. “‘Mkay. I’m gonna go to sleep.”

“Okay. ‘Night.”

A palpitoad at the edge of the water stares at him imploringly. Leon stares back. 

"Are you gonna catch it, or not?" Sonia complains.

He shrugs, and throws a ball at it. It clicks. 

"His name is Dock." He announces, going to collect it.

Sonia rolls her eyes and tugs her hood over her head at the impending threat of rain. 

“Avoid the steelix.” Sonia hisses through grit teeth. “What was the _one thing_ they told us to do?”

Leon presses his back further against the boulder. He can hear the metallic oscillation of the steelix’s tail. He rubs grit from his eyes. The sandstorm the steelix dredged up behind it howls and tears at his hair, scratching at his skin. A loud, long exhalation. 

Sonia balls her hands up into fists. _“Please_ tell me it’s not-”

Leon tips his head back. The narrowed eyes of the steelix glare down at him. 

“Run!” 

There’s no way either of them are going to outrun a steelix, not in the midst of a sandstorm. Sonia tries to balance tearing for her bag and running.

“Where’s the pager!?”

There were usually trained corviknight waiting at every outpost. Even without the driver, they would respond to the high-pitched whistle, at a frequency only they could hear. It was a last ditch effort for trainers who had run out of other options.

Vesta bursts out of her ball in a flash of light.

“You can’t fight that thing!” Sonia yells. “Leon, don’t let her fight that! We’re not strong enough-!”

“We don’t need to beat it, we just need to get it off our trail.” Leon says between breaths. They duck beneath a rock overhang, only for it to be smashed to pieces by an iron tail. 

They run out of the way before falling rubble can crush them. 

Vesta spits flames at the steelix, and tries to paralyze it with dragon breath. 

“Is there anything strong enough to fight it here?” He breathes. 

“I - I think there might be machamp over there, but I don’t know if we can run that long-”

The earth beneath them shifts.

A crackling sound beneath their feet. Sonia catches on just as he does.

He dives to pull Vesta out of the way just as the earth splits and shakes, like the capricious movement of tectonic plates. He braces himself, when heat burns underneath his palms. Vesta’s scales glow so bright that he has to close his eyes. 

Two pairs of wings emerge from her back, flaring in brilliant, dark cerulean. She twists around him, and he barely has time to adjust his hold around her neck before she takes to the air in clumsy downbeats. Gravity lunges at his dangling feet while he swings his legs over her back, the heat from recent evolution almost scorching. His stomach drops as Vesta’s wings snap to her sides and she tilts into a nosedive. 

She grabs Sonia around the middle and almost drops her, not accounting for the change in balance. 

He barks a laugh as Sonia screams, grabbing hold of Vesta’s shoulders and hauling herself up as two beats of her powerful wings leave them hurtling up and over steelix’s head. He laughs as Vesta breathes a plume of fire over its head, an astonished look on its face.

One wing dips too far down and catches a downdraft, nearly sending them spiralling into the tall, dry grass.

“Vesta!” He yells, as they start to wobble. “Land!”

She comes to an unsteady perch on the rock bridge, nearly depositing the both of them a hundred feet down.

Sonia grips the stone like her life depends on it.

“You-” She chokes out. “If you ever do that again, I’ll _kill_ you.”

He leans up against Vesta’s side, a breathless laugh caught in his throat, staring down at the wild area as it sprawls in front of them, its inhabitants nothing more than tiny dots roaming the dusty field.

Vesta throws her head back and roars. 

“Leon.” Sonia hisses. _“Where did you get that?”_

She’s, of course, referring to the Honedge he has in his hands. 

“She started following me back there! I don’t know, there wasn’t any aegislash or anything around, so I asked her if she wanted to come with and she said yes.”

She runs her fingers through her hair. “I’ve had enough near death experiences today. If that thing has a mom or something that comes to kill us, it’s definitely your fault.”

He hugs the honedge to his chest. “I accept that and take responsibility.”

She just sighs. “Well, what’re you gonna name her?”

“Um.”

“Right. Of course.”

“I’m not good at this!” 

“I know.” She says. “Cupcake knows. Cherry knows. The entire farm knows.”

He huffs. “Are you gonna help me or keep mocking me?”

“Ideally, both.” She leans down to look at it, eye level. It cautiously offers her its blue, silky tail. “How about… Micah?”

“Micah.” He repeats, testing the syllables. Something crashes through the grass behind them.

“Running now.” Sonia says, and bolts. 

“Hey!” He yells. He turns around. A sudowoodo freezes in place. Micah doesn’t look impressed. “It’s just a sudowoodo!”

She’s already halfway up the staircase, nestled in the dark, sleek obsidian maw of Hammerlocke. Overhead, it spreads composite steel wings to the sky. Towers of dark brick form spiral columns, topped by sculpted stone dragons, watching over the citizens passing through the streets below. 

“Not taking any chances!” She yells back, and turns to jog up the rest of the stares at unprecedented speed.

He shakes his head and runs after her.

Hammerlocke is more grand than even Motostoke. He supposes it should be fitting, for the city of dragons, steeped in centuries worth of history and culture. Flags are draped over the arching walls of the stadium, the heart of the city. Regal, untouchable. Not ten percent of all contestants make it there. The eight gym, the heart and blood of Hammerlocke.

Sonia is tasked with visiting the vault on behalf of professor Magnolia, and she has special permission to do so, which gives Leon half the day to himself. She’d told him rather pointedly to wait at the pokemon center because he will get lost if he tries to go anywhere by himself.

And he will. Most certainly.

But he wanted to see the stadium up close. So he’d taken Vesta out to guide him (ignoring all the strange, beseeching looks from the pedestrians, like needles in his back), and they’d arrived at the drawbridge relatively easily. 

The family crest is gilded onto the top of every arch, every building. As far as he’s aware, the woman who runs the gym is part of the family that controls most of the city. They work in conjunction with Chairman Rose, who manages the power spot beneath the stadium. Sonia mentioned something about there being a lab of some sort beneath them. As he walks down the rich, velvet red carpets, reserved for only the strongest trainers, he wonders.

He isn’t expecting to bump into Chairman Rose. 

A woman follows just behind him, next to the woman who’s name he has trouble remembering - Oleana?

“Leon.” Rose greets. “You’ve already arrived in Hammerlocke! I’ve been keeping up with your progress - it’s quite impressive.”

He shies away from the praise, stepping back under Vesta’s arched wing. “Thank you.”

“And I see your charmeleon evolved.”

“Oh, yeah. We had… an encounter with a steelix.”

The woman laughs, and brushes a cascade of dark ringlets behind her ear. “I think I know the exact one you’re talking about. Sahara, right? She’s a menace to new trainers. She hangs around by the bridge to terrorize people coming from Motostoke. She comes up so often we’ve given her a name.”

“We’re lucky Vesta’s a quick learner.” 

“We should probably update your trainer card, now that I think about it.” Rose says, after a moment’s pause. “Now that you’ve got three badges, people are going to start paying attention to you. You want to make a good impression. Oleana, remind me to make an appointment.”

He blinks, and opens his mouth, when-

“Auntie.” Raihan emerges from the doorway, and pauses when he sees them all. 

“Raihan.” The woman - the gym leader - greets, smiling warmly. “Chairman Rose, this is my nephew, Raihan.”

“We’re acquainted.” Raihan says, and turns to Leon. “So you finally got here, huh? And Vesta evolved.”

He runs a hand over her snout, scratching behind her jaw. 

“She did, yesterday.”

Raihan’s mouth slants into a grin. “What a coincidence.” The ball in his hand opens, and a vibrava materializes on the ground. 

“Is that Tanami?” The woman crouches down.

“Sure is.” Raihan declares proudly. 

Rose checks his watch. “I’m terribly sorry to cut this short, but it appears I’m needed somewhere at headquarters. It was a pleasure talking with you, Marie. You too, Leon, Raihan.”

And then both he and his assistant are gone, and Marie is quick to follow. “Raihan,” She says as she leaves, “Don’t forget to check in with your parents tonight!”

Raihan was born and raised in Hammerlocke. It makes sense, that he would come from somewhere so big. He navigates the streets like the back of his hand, occasionally stopping to talk to neighbors who call from their porches or children playing in their yards. 

The street smells like roasting chestnuts and vegetable oil. There’s a shop down the street that Raihan says _technically_ isn’t legal because street vendors aren’t allowed to sell during league season without a permit, but no one calls them out on it. The shelves of every store they peruse are lined tacky postcards, matched only in their terrible design by their terrible phrases.

He picks one off the shelf with a picture of the Hammerlocke hills on it, overlooking the Giant’s Mirror, just because he knows it’s so obnoxious that Mom will hate it so much it’ll probably ended up framed on the wall.

They end up back outside.

“Y’know.” Raihan leans in conspiratorially. “The wings are walkways.”

“Really?”

“Really.” He grins. “I always used to want to go up there, but my Dad always said I couldn’t, because they were under construction. They aren’t now.”

Leon catches on to what he’s suggesting a moment later. “Can we get in trouble for that?”

“Not unless someone’s already up there.” He straightens. “C’mon, it’ll be fun. It’ll give Vesta a chance to stretch her wings, too, right?” He leans back. “Don’t tell me you’re scared of heights.”

“As _if.”_

They retreat to one of the back alleys, wet with water from an overflowing storm drain. Vesta opens her wings, and the two of them are off.

They’re so high up Leon can see the entire city in its entirety.

He leans over the edge of the railing, looking up to stare at the cloud-dappled sky.

“Do you think that if I take a picture here my Mom will wonder how I got it?”

Raihan snorts.

The wind tugs gently at his hair. He toes the line between dizzying vertigo and complete balance. 

“So, your Aunt’s the gym leader?”

Raihan’s hand falls to the nape of his neck. “Yeah, uh. My family kind of owns the city.”

“Wait, really?”

“Yeah. You think everyone can get away with dragon breeding? You need, like, so many licenses.” 

He sits down next to him. The path is just wide enough that they can both fit, shoulder to shoulder. Raihan nudges him, taking out his phone to lean back. 

“You wanna take a picture?”

“Sure. But - if we’re not supposed to be up here-”

“I won’t post it.” He replies, angling back to get the right angle of light. “I don’t have that many followers yet. We’re still in the early stages of the gym challenge, so there’s a lot of competition. People aren’t sure who to look at yet.”

He glances at the time at the top corner of the phone. 

“Shit. I was supposed to be back at the pokemon center twenty minutes ago.”

Sonia probably thinks he got lost somewhere in the streets and that he’ll never find his way back, which is not an unsubstantiated fear.

“Vesta!” She turns her head towards him. “We’ve gotta go back now!”

Sonia chews him out on his irresponsibility for about five minutes before the barista behind the counter takes pity on him and they both end up with free drinks. Sonia is still angry, but it’s hard to be angry while sucking whipped cream up through a straw. 

“Was the view at least good?” She grumbles. He shows her the picture. “Well, that seemed like more fun than looking at dusty old portraits from three centuries ago.”

She swirls her straw in a circle. 

“Sorry I got mad. I thought you got lost or something.”

“It’s okay. I probably would’ve, if it wasn’t for Raihan.”

She leans over the table, resting her head on her hand. “Raihan.” She repeats slowly. “Let’s go get food. I’m starving.”

They don’t see Raihan until later that day. 

Leon lounges against a food stand, oil-spotted paper bag in hand. Sonia went to investigate another restaurant to see if they had a shorter line.

He shoots her a text, and stays right where he is.

He looks up from his phone, only to see him and his vibrava near the entrance of the boutique. Raihan must notice the staring, because he turns and brings an arm up to wave. 

“It any good?” He directs his gaze down at the bag in his hand.

He ponders over something, and texts Sonia again. After a moment, her reply comes. 

“Remember when we asked if you wanted to travel with us? The offer still stands. Sonia said it was cool.”

Raihan blinks, and his shoulders ease back. "I mean, I have to ask Nessa, but I'm pretty sure she'll agree, so... yeah, sure.”

His smile brightens his face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -leon interacts with ghosts  
> -imagine being chased by a twenty ton steel snake lmao. Like. Terrifying  
> -Raihan is here!


	6. Chapter 6

They leave Hammerlocke early. Earlier than he would’ve liked, anyways. 

The streets, while quieter than they were last night, are still buzzing with activity. People rush to the train, calling corviknight taxis, biking to their morning commute. The streetlamps are still on, cutting through the gray haze of early morning and reflecting off the wet asphalt in a kaleidoscope blur. Part of the street is taped off, a nettle-grove of twisted rebar sticking up at haphazard angles. A late-night street battle gone bad, probably. Strictly illegal, but downtown it was harder to get caught.

Raihan tugs his hood over his head and grumbles something about how early it is. Nessa is strictly professional about it, not hindered in the slightest by the hour of morning. Sonia is the only one out of all of them that looks the least bit enthusiastic.

Route Six is full of grainy golden light peeking over the jagged tops of red clay mountains. They’re supposedly full of twisting tunnels carved out by dugtrio that allowed the natives to flee from attacks. He supposes it would make the giant monument more sensible. 

There aren’t that many trainers out this early. Leon wonders if that was Sonia’s goal.

The tall, dry grass sways around his legs. Pairs of glowing purple eyes stare up at them from where they’re crowded around the sheltering wall of stone. On their other side, the stone tumbles away to a great ravine of rolling green valleys - and, further, he can see the Wild Area. Even from so high up, the sheer size of it is staggering.

He nearly trips over a helioptile in his aweing. It’s frilled neck flares as it bares sharp, needle-thin teeth and slinking away. They hike up long after the afternoon sun sits on the horizon. 

There’s not any real place to go except for up. 

Rough paths are carved out where there’s enough ledge to support them, and levelled out by years of travel. For the longest time, Stow on Side lived up to its name of being almost entirely isolated, between the twisting canyon and equally twisting, thickly wooded forest that connected it to Ballonlea. No one bothered making any accessible path until they petitioned to add it as the fourth gym of the circuit. 

With the heavy glare of the sun, Maractus dot the grass, meandering back and forth on pivoting legs. They pass under an outcropping of rock, and Leon turns over his shoulder just in time to watch a silicobra uncoil from its perch on the ledge and drop itself unceremoniously on Raihan’s shoulders. He startles so hard he nearly launches the both of them off the edge, and Leon reaches out just in time to steady him.

“What is it?” Sonia yells, already having hauled herself up onto the next ledge.

“Nothing!” He has to choke back his laughter. He’s mostly unsuccessful. “Your - your face.”

“Hey, _you_ try having one of these things dumped on your head.” Raihan raises a hand cautiously to touch it. From the looks of it, it’s gone right back to dozing. He shakes his head. “Unbelievable. These things’ll sleep anywhere. Way too trusting.”

“Are you gonna… keep it? Aren’t you building a dragon team?”

“Well, I can’t just put it back.” He replies. “I’ve been chosen. And it’s an honorary dragon type, so it still counts.”

Leon snorts. “Yeah, sure.”

“Yeah.” Raihan confirms. 

“Hurry _up_ you guys!” Nessa yells. “We gotta get there before tonight!”

“Well,” Raihan glances down at him. “Better hurry up, slowpoke.”

 _“Me?_ You’re the one that- hey!”

Raihan is already walking ahead. 

They venture up another ladder bolted upright, and then _very carefully_ maneuver across a ledge so thin that they can only go one at a time, and he has to grapple for the bar, surely put there after someone plunged into the ravine below. 

Pieces of rock crumble beneath his feet. Leon would honestly prefer just riding Vesta across this section, because he trusts her not to drop him into the gorge. Mostly. 

She’s mostly used to her wings now, but she’s still building up her stamina and he doubts that she can ferry all of them across the chasm.

Eventually they get back to solid ground. Leon ends up in the back again, because he has to compete to keep up with Raihan’s longer stride, and with how disgustingly hot it is, he doesn’t want to attempt it. He’s already done away with his hoodie and the back of his neck is slick with sweat. It’s not humid heat, at least. Just dry enough to make his throat dry and his eyes irritated. His hands feel hot.

(The yamask are following him again).

He eventually turns around to ask them politely to please stop following him, because this is getting weird, but he’s interrupted when something weaves through the grass, pausing only to regard him nervously, before ducking behind him. Two faces lean over the rock overhead. 

“Hey, kid, have you seen any axew around here?”

Technically he hasn’t, so-

“No.” He replies. “Sorry.”

One of them mumbles a curse in what he would tentatively classify as Unovan, before retreating. Leon stands there for a good minute before turning around to regard what is most definitely an axew hiding behind him.

“Hi.” He greets, kneeling down, and extends a hand, which it sniffs carefully. “Were those guys after you?”

“Leon!” Sonia yells. Her voice echoes off the canyon walls, even with distance. The axew startles. “Don’t tell me you got lost!”

“I’m not!” He calls back. “You probably don’t want to stick around if they were after you. Put some distance between you or something.”

He stands up, and attempts to dust himself up. The axew considers to stare. 

“... okay. Bye!” He takes a step back, and it seems determined to follow.

Oh, boy.

Dragon types are notoriously difficult to raise (Tiamat is a testament to that). But he already has one, so what’s the harm in having another one?

“You’re not gonna stop following me, are you?” The cautious step forward that it takes is all the answer he needs. “Okay then.” He leans down to scoop it up. “We better catch up to the others before I actually get lost.”

“You found an _Axew?”_ Raihan gapes. Asha, tucked securely in his arms, squeaks. “Those are really difficult to find around here. They make up, like, less than one percent of the population.”

Leon perches forward on his toes. “How do you know that?”

“Parents earn a dragon conservatory, remember? We have a breeding pair of haxorus. They’re considered an endangered pokemon. They were imported from Unova like, a couple hundred years ago but the weather conditions aren’t really great for their eggs. They’re really fragile, and lower stage ones are usually pretty weak. So, yeah, not many wild ones.”

“There were some people after her, I think. She seemed scared.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised.” He says, storm clouds on his tongue. “There’re a lot of poachers around here. Axew tusks grow back really easily and they don’t evolve until late so they’re an easy target.”

“They take their _tusks?”_

“Yeah. Haxorus are usually too difficult and you’re not likely to find one in the wild. Sometimes they’ll raise them up to be fraxure before farming them, but-” He shakes his head. “It’s pretty terrible. The Rangers are cracking down on it more but- you know. A little late.”

There’s a tightness in his tone like crackling ozone. Leon bumps their shoulders together to try and dissolve some of the tension. “Then it’s a good thing I got her instead.”

Some of the tension in his shoulders eases, and he snorts. “That’s your second dragon type, yeah? You sure you aren’t trying to make a dragon type team?”

“Vesta would probably eat me if I tried to replace her.”

He laughs. “Probably.”

They come out on the other side of the rock overhang, and there’s the diglett monument. Nessa is posing while Sonia takes pictures. 

Nessa waves once she sees them approaching. “C’mon! We need to go register!”

Stow on Side is just as lively as Hammerlocke. Street vendors line the dusty road. Flags are strung up over the streets. Their festival starts as soon as the circuit opens up. The heavy aroma of fried food lingers in the air. Scarves hung on iron hooks, charcoal, a dragon fang on a black cord strung with beads that Raihan glances at as they pass, and no shortage of fresh fruit, hidden from the wrath of the sun beneath colorful umbrellas. 

They end up staying at a motel because Stow on Side is still too small to accommodate too many visitors at once. The pokemon center is already full, and they don’t have the time to find enough land for all of them to set up their own tents. There’s only one room, but it’ll suffice for a night.

Nessa comes back to the motel with an armful of jewelry. Sonia’s procured a sharp beak for Zephyr to hold during the gym match. All of them buy too much food. 

Nessa hangs upside down from the bed, flicking through the crappy-pay-by-the-hour TV. From when he sees, there’s nothing worth watching. The only free ones are _A documentary on the lost champion: Trainer Red,_ or a documentary on the Alph Ruins. 

Raihan scrunches up his nose. “Both sound pretty bad.”

“Yeah.” Nessa rolls onto her stomach. “But I’m not paying fifteen dollars for a movie and these two are free.”

Sonia points to the screen. “Hey, that’s last year’s championship.”

“It looks like it was filmed on a battle recorder.”

Nessa rolls her eyes and they end up with a laughably bad movie that Leon would tentatively classify as romance. 

“This is terrible.” Raihan sniffs haughtily. “I’m picking the next movie.”

Nessa flicks a kernel of carmel corn at him. “Movie snob.”

“I’m not picking that up.”

Eventually they turn in, because they have their gym battle early the next day. Nessa and Raihan are competing to see who can tell the worst joke and both think Leon is awful for laughing at them. He smothers the last of his laughter in the pillow as Sonia kills the lights. From across from him on the floor, Raihan kicks him.

“Night.”

Pepper evolves in the middle of the gym challenge. The excess energy pouring off him washes over the room and washes off him like static electricity. Legs and arms replace his formerly amorphous figure. When he turns around, with bright, excited eyes, Leon has a firmer grasp on Pepper’s excitement, the feeling more easily broadcasted. It seems to brighten the room.

The gym trainer he’s fighting smiles as she recalls her hitmonchan. 

“Congratulations.” She takes his hand, and tightens the black belt around her wrist. He grabs Pepper’s mostly corporeal hands and resists the very childish urge to jump up and down. “You did it!”

A girl with short, light hair ventures a step closer, hugging her mother’s leg.

“Forgive her, this is my daughter, Bea.”

He turns. “Nice to meet you.”

“Can I pet him?” She asks quietly.

“Bea.” Her mother gently scolds, but he shakes his head. “No, it’s fine, he’s friendly.”

She takes Pepper’s offered hand and smiles.

“Thank you. She’s just here to observe, she isn’t old enough to be a gym trainer.” The mother explains. “If your pokemon doesn’t need any assistance, you should probably carry on with the challenge.”

Evolution tended to have some drawbacks; getting used to a new body, for one, and its new capabilities. He watches Pepper stomp around the platform for a minute, testing his newfound dexterity, and smiles. “No, I think he’s okay.”

In the pitch, the lights are nearly blinding. Adrenaline and vague terror make a home in his chest, while anticipation shakes him full of static. The gym leader smiles at him and crosses her arms over her chest.

“You ready, kid?”

He returns her grin. “I am.”

Pepper starts out with will-o-wisp to reduce the medicham’s attack stats, and with the type advantage, scores a win with minimal damage. Her mienshao falls to the same tactic, but pangoro demands that he send out Vesta.

It eventually falls to a critical air slash, and then she sends out her ace: bewear.

The stadium shakes as she Dynamaxes. It lands on the ground with enough force to break the pitch, and the bracelet on his wrist thrums with so much energy his vision nearly goes white. Something is different when Vesta begins to Dynamax, though. 

Despite the heat, goosebumps raise down his arms, and the tidal wave of energy in his chest threatens to consume him if it doesn’t find an outlet. 

A collar of flames burns around her neck and her wings ignite, twin conflagrations, swirling infernos. The shaking of the ground must imply the screaming of the crowd, the flickering of the monitor as it tries to catch Vesta in her full glory. 

Vesta tips her head back to roar, and the heat threatens the psychic barrier protecting the crowd from harm. 

His vision seems to cut out, tunneling at the edges, until there’s only the battle, only him and Vesta and their opposition, and he feels the deep pull in his chest as winged phoenix-fire explodes into an inferno that takes bewear down with it.

His vision does cut out for a minute, and his skin feels hot all over, and it doesn’t occur to him that the battle is over and Vesta has reverted to normal size until he registers the voice at the edge of his auditory periphery. He stumbles on shaky feet, all the excess energy bubbling to the surface in the form of heat.

He blinks to clear his vision.

“Are you okay?” She asks. 

“Oh, uh, yeah.” He stumbles over his tongue. “What was-?”

“Your charizard can Gigantamax.” She replies with a smile. “Pretty awesome, right? But intense, as well. Here’s your badge. Make sure the both of you get some rest.”

He doesn’t trust either him or Vesta to make it to the locker room alone, so despite the awful heat radiating off her and the smoke rising from her wings, he still leans against her, dazed, as they stumble back across the charred, singed turf.

He must black out again in the locker room because Sonia is suddenly thrusting a water bottle in his hand while he tries to clear his head. Raihan is rambling about how cool that was and Sonia is flipping through medical journals.

She hisses a frustrated sigh. “Why doesn’t anyone know anything about Gigantimaxing?” She shakes her head. “Grandma knew that was gonna happen, didn’t she? She totally gave you that egg so you could do field research for her, and it’s now recorded on national television. Ugh. She could’ve at least warned us.” She grumbles. She types something into her phone. “What’d it feel like?”

“Um.” His fried brain takes a second to process that. “... hot. And. Intense? I could kind of feel what Vesta was doing…” 

“I’ve seen it compared to mega evolution.” She frowns. “The phenomenon is supposed to be similar, so… uh, just keep sitting down.”

Right. As if he was going anywhere.

Raihan slides into the seat next to him. “The professor gave you a charizard that can Gigantamax?”

“She was testing whether that was a genetic component…” Sonia says. “Knowing her she did this on purpose.”

Nessa snorts. “You should’ve gone last. You tore up the pitch real good.”

He takes a minute to process that, too. “Sorry.” He winces. “I wasn’t expecting that.”

She grins. “None of us were. It was pretty cool, though. Do you think drednaw can Gigantamax?”

“I’d have to ask.” She replies offhandedly. “I guess we should get out of here now. They’re gonna want to fix everything up.”

“Right.” He says, still lightheaded, and the trip back to the bleachers is a blur. 

That night, he sits in front of the PC in the pokemon center and logs in to the ‘meet’ function.

Mom adjusts her terrible phone so the camera can capture both she and Hop, who’s nearly climbing in her lap to see him.

“Lee!” He shouts. “I saw your match this morning! How did your pokemon do that? It was so cool! Can I do that?”

Mom gently pulls Hop away from the screen. “Alright, don’t overwhelm him, sweetheart.” She smiles warmly at the screen. She looks tired. It’s probably late for her. “How are you doing, Leon? You looked a bit worse for wear after that last fight.”

 _Were they watching all of that?_ Well, his fumble is now accessible for the entire region to watch, which is beyond embarrassing, but at least he can actually look back and see what happened, since his memory isn’t very clear. “Uh, yeah, I’m okay.”

One shower and at least three bottles of water later and he was feeling much better.

“I think it’s called Gigantamaxing. You can ask professor Magnolia about it. I actually… wasn’t expecting that to happen. It caught me off guard a little.” He smiles sheepishly. 

She smiles again and steers the topic away from the gyms, after a remark that he’s halfway through the circuit, which momentarily stuns him. Halfway through. Four badges out of eight.

“I heard Route Six has stunning views. How was the journey?”

He very carefully doesn’t mention the part where they almost all met their premature graves by tumbling into the ravine, because she doesn’t need to know that.

“It was… fun. There’s this really cool monument. There’s this giant diglett carving in the mountains and it’s really cool. Sonia and Nessa took a lot of pictures. Oh! And I caught an axew.”

He retrieves her from her ball. She nips at his fingers as he settles her on his lap, holding her up so they can see.

Hop coos over her and Mom speaks in her soft voice and Leon thinks Asha likes them both just fine, even if she is skittish about everyone else they’ve encountered.

“We leave for Ballonlea tomorrow.” He informs her. “Which is the fairy type gym, I’m pretty sure.”

And the perfect opportunity to use Micah. 

“That’s good. I’ve heard there’s a forest around Ballonlea that people get lost in, though.” Her concern is not unsubstantiated, unfortunately. 

“I’ll keep close to the others.” He promises.

“Alright. Just be careful, honey. Hop, your brother’s got to go soon, and it’s past your bedtime.”

Hop yawns and mumbles something about not being tired before reluctantly waving. Leon waves goodbye and logs out of the PC.

Sonia informs him the next morning that professor Magnolia absolutely did do this on purpose and would very much appreciate it if he could keep a log of his experiences. He’s not quite sure how he should react to that, but considering she’s the only reason he’s on the gym challenge in the first place he should oblige. The thing is he doesn’t quite remember what it felt like.

“We’ll go find some Dynamax dens.” Sonia promises as she drains the cup of coffee with a vigor almost certainly born of spite. Her mother never let her drink coffee. “We should test it out.” She flicks at her phone. Her and Nessa’s nails are matching shades of aquamarine, today. “We should be able to take some time after Opal’s gym. Only thirty three percent of contestants last that long, so all the hotels should be open and we don’t have to worry about waiting for a match.”

That was one of the things that’d been drilled into them when the challenge started: there was a time limit. Technically it wasn’t broken evenly between all the gyms. If you were confident you could take them all on consecutively, there was nothing stopping you - but most gyms got backlogged with how many matches there were, and hotels got crowded, and sometimes you couldn’t get a match in, and then wound up not qualifying by the time the semifinals were upon you.

“We should.” He agrees, and looks down to Vesta’s ball. “Do you mind if we train on Route Six for a little longer?”

“Sure.” She shrugs, and throws her styrofoam cup in the nearest trash bin. “I’ll tell Raihan and Nessa. Don’t go anywhere, got it?”

He salutes, and she rolls her eyes.

Dock evolves fighting a particularly aggressive torkoal, and Micah follows not soon after, making quick work of the local helioptile and duskull. El should be able to evolve soon, with Asha not far off (Raihan had taken one look at her and proclaimed that, based on the growth of her tusks, she was due for evolution soon). He’ll rotate Tiamat back in after Opal’s gym and get him some training in the Wild Area. 

Raihan’s silicobra evolves as well, already too big to be draped comfortably over his head.

“Are you guys done already?” Sonia puts her hands on her hips. “We do not want to get lost in that forest.”

She looks at him, at that last point.

“I’ll stay close, I promise!”

She stays dubious. “You better. Now we gotta go. C’mon!”

They start down the path, and just this once Leon hopes that luck is on his side.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -Leon trying to navigate that forest is gonna be a trip  
> -I figure the different regions should probably have different languages??  
> -Bea was just in the gym to observe (her parents are supposed to be strict about training I think)  
> -Dreepy will come back soon I promise Dreepy are just kinda weak until they evolve and he's very much not going to help against a fairy type gym


	7. Chapter 7

Ballonlea is a twisting maze of blinding bioluminescence against a startlingly dark backdrop of forest. The entrance to the forest is a gradual one, punctuated with dilapidated signs warding off uncertain travellers from journeying into the forest’s depths, warning against the soft music that seems to fill the ambient air and the sickly sweet smell of honeycomb that seems to come from nowhere. Fairy types like to play tricks, and this is no exception. There are rumors that the forest itself likes to play tricks, that the trees move when you look away. 

Its reputation of smoke and mirrors isn’t an unearned one. The farther they travel the darker it gets, the canopy woven together so thickly that it prevents the midafternoon sun from reaching the forest floor. It’s significantly cooler than it had been in Stow on Side, and quieter, too. They stumble over gnarled, oversized roots and around swaying patches of grass filled with watchful eyes. 

The ponyta that was trying to chew on Sonia’s hair earlier when they stopped to take a break is still following them. They’re almost mythic for their trusting nature and eagerness to help. More often than not, they were willing to guide the unfortunate traveller out of the forest should the need arise if they deemed them true of heart, but their numbers were dwindling and this one looks young. Sonia had cooed over its bubblegum pink mane and big, dark eyes. 

Sonia, leading the group, growls as they reach another dead end. Her phone flashlight doesn’t reach far enough to clarify anything on the map, so she has to lean towards the neon pink light of the blooming mushrooms at their side. If they stop long enough, the impidimp get curious and venture a little too close. 

Vesta would normally be enough to keep them away, as fairy types are always cautious of fire, but instead he sends Micah out.

She brandishes two swords now, having evolved into doublade some time after they first entered the forest. Her new magenta tassels sway in the nonexistent breeze that seems to stir the grass with it. 

“Don’t get too close to the mushrooms.” Sonia warns. “They’re psychedelics.”

Their spores were, anyways. Poisonous to humans if ingested. Poisonous to most species of pokemon, too, which is why a very select few chose to make this their home. The only ecological purpose it seemed to serve was that of light. 

They pause in another clearing, careful not to provoke any of the slumbering shiinotic nestled beneath the dark, wide ferns.

As he bends over to tie his shoe, a morgrem hurtles out of the bushes and drags Micah down into the grass. Without thinking, Leon jumps after them, squinting through the darkness until he spots her finishing it off with iron head.

Leon turns around, but it seems like the path that he took isn’t behind him anymore. 

He turns in a full circle, but he has no idea what way he came from.

“Oh no.”

Leon sits on a log and tries not to put his hand in any moss as he tips his head back to stare up into the darkness of the forest. For a minute he contemplates just having Vesta carry him over the forest, but he doesn’t have any idea where the others are, and technology has a habit of malfunctioning - there’s certainly no service he can use to call anyone. 

He startles as a pawniard cuts through the grass and leaps into the clearing. It’s clearly tired, shoulders heaving. A trainer is hot on its heels, a dark sweatshirt hanging off a thin frame. His hair is pulled back into a ponytail. 

“Hey!” He calls, in a thick eastern accent. He immediately locks in on Micah. “You’ve got a steel type, don’t you?”

“Uh, yeah- why?”

His question is answered as an entire hoard of impidimp hurtle through the bushes.

Micah focuses on slashing through their ranks, the pawniard guarding her back, as they escape the line of fire. 

“What did you _do?”_

He gestures to a luxury ball clipped to his belt. “Toxtricity and I must’ve got a little too loud and woke up the little fuckers.” 

They stay crouched there until their pokemon return. He untangles Micah’s tassels while she preens. 

“Thanks for the save.” The kid says, standing up. He’s probably a year or two older, and he has a fair couple of inches on him. “I’m Piers.”

“I’m Leon. I got separated from my group a little while ago. They’re probably out by now.” 

Piers shrugs. “We can catch up. You know which way they went?”

“I’m, um, not reliable with directions.” To put it lightly. 

Piers shrugs again. “Then we just pick a direction. Forest’s gotta end someplace.”

Well, Leon would take the casually blunt optimism.

“What do you mean you _lost him?!”_

“I thought he was right behind me! I mean, like, I saw him when I turned back so I don’t know-”

“The fucking mushrooms.” She hisses, tearing her fingers through her hair. “Oh shit, we _lost Leon._ He’s never getting out of there. I’m gonna have to tell his Mom that he’s dead holy shit-”

“Okay, guys, did you call a ranger?” Nessa stops either of them before they can escalate the situation any further.

“There’s no _cell service.”_

“Okay, well-” Nessa pauses. “Where’d that ponyta go? Wasn’t it just there?”

Sonia groans. “We’re never getting him out of there.”

“So you’re a gym challenger too?”

“Yep. You’re one of those kids endorsed by the chairman, aren’t you?”

“Uh, yeah.” Apparently, news of that spread rather quickly, especially now that there’s so few of them left. “Who’re you endorsed by?”

“Spikemuth gym leader’s my Mom. Not a lot of kids back home participate. We don’t like the league much. So unfortunately it’s up to me to do this.” He doesn’t sound greatly enthusiastic about it.

In front of them, Micah leans forward to carefully poke at the pawniard, which hisses angrily and swipes at her with a claw. 

“You don’t want to take the challenge?”

He shrugs. “Meh. Does it matter? I’m here. Where’re you from, kid?”

“Postwick.”

“Never heard of it.”

“Most people haven’t. It’s just a little farming town. Mostly we just have wooloo.”

Piers hums absentmindedly under his breath, and stares at Micah for a minute. “You planning on evolving ‘er?”

“I might.” He confesses. “She evolved pretty recently though, so I’ll wait a couple more days before trying anything. I think she needs a dusk stone, too…” 

“Dusk stone? Hell, you can have one.” He reaches back into his bag and pulls out a bag secured by twine, filled to the brim with lopsided, translucent stones glowing faintly purple. 

“I - why do you have so many?”

Piers shrugs a shoulder, looks up at the sky like he’s begging for patience, and sighs, longsuffering. “Do you have any idea how many fuckin many kids in Spikemuth have murkrow? Too many. Then it’s _my_ responsibility to get the gym dusk stones so they can evolve ‘em and start flocks for conservation or some shit. I ended up with too many. I was just gonna pawn ‘em off, but you can have one, since you helped.”

“Oh. Thank you.” He carefully extracts the one on top and tucks it in his pocket for later. Micah is eyeing them, clearly having sensed whatever aspect of the stones that gives them their evolutionary capabilities. 

“Later.” He chides. “You’re not even in control of two swords yet.”

If she could huff, she definitely would be.

The bushes rustle. They all tense, only for a ponyta to leap from the bushes, shaking leaves from its mane.

Leon blinks. “Hey, are you the one from before?”

It tilts its head and walks up to his offered hand. There’s the little braid Sonia twisted in its mane. “Do you know where everyone went?”

It brightens considerably, before turning and jumping back through the bushes.

Leon glances over his shoulder. “Do you want to come?”

Piers just shrugs. “Sure, why not.”

Ballonlea is what might be considered an idyllic junction of nature and human progress. Renaissance style buildings built between the great roots of trees so big he can’t see the tops of them. All light sources come from the occasional floating chinchou and the great towering mushrooms that glow sapphire blue and magenta. It would make for a prime tourist destination if not for the forest surrounding it. Currently, Leon is unable to appreciate the ethereal beauty of it because he’s Sonia is hugging him so tight he might as well be getting strangled.

“I _told_ you not to wander off-!”

“I’m sorry!” He squeaks, ducking behind Raihan and out of her range. 

“Who was that other kid, anyways?” Nessa asks. 

“He was another gym challenger. His name was Piers.”

Nessa hums and turns to Sonia. “So… are you gonna catch that ponyta or what, because if you don’t, I will.”

“Aren’t you a water-type trainer?”

“I’ll make an exception, don’t test me.” 

Sonia breathes a laugh and kneels down next to it. “Do you wanna come with me?”

In its excitement, it nearly knocks her back onto the street.

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

Opal is maybe the weirdest gym leader Leon has ever met. 

“Children…” She catches them at registration, leaning over her striped umbrella. “You lack pink.”

“... what?”

“Ms. Opal!” One of the gym trainers sighs. “You’re too picky. When are you gonna choose a new leader?”

She swats her hand away. “I have a few fighting years left in these old bones, Annette. These four are… unsuitable for leaders. Now, back to the stage, we have challengers.”

Leon blinks. “... what just happened?”

“I have no idea.” Sonia shoves the pen in his hands. “Just hurry up before she changes her mind.”

He evolves Micah the day before his match is scheduled. 

There’s a garden behind the hotel that’s tended to by the local pokemon. Morelull sleep in the rose bushes and hattrem sit by the flowers.

The burst of light is so bright and hot that for a moment he has to look away. He startles some of the staff still in the kitchen and half the pokemon scatter, only a few staying behind to watch with curious eyes.

When the light fades, an Aegislash stands in her place. Heat still radiates off her in a warm glow.

She blinks at him.

“Awesome.” He stays crouched like that, perched forward on his toes. “We should probably figure out your move set now, right?”

It was a good thing pokemon centers were opened all hours of the night.

Raihan shakes his shoulder. “Wake up, dude. Your match is in five minutes.”

“Ugh.” He groans, rubbing at his eyes with a palm. “Sorry.”

“Why’re you so tired?”

“He was up all night.” Nessa interjects, not helpfully. “I heard him outside early this morning when I went for a run.”

“What were you even doing out there?”

“Training.” He leans on his palms. Everything is a little too bright and hot, like his skin is stretched too thin around his bones. "I evolved Micah and I needed to make sure she was all good for the match."

Sonia walks back from the line of kiosks dominating the left half of the building; long lines of people trail behind them. “They’re selling uniforms over there.” She scoffs. “But I did find a few trainer cards.”

“Number 716?” His number rings over the loudspeaker and flashes on the screen above administration in big, bright letters. 

“You’re up.” Raihan grins. “Good luck.”

“No Gigantamaxing.” Sonia warns, poking him in the ribs. 

“I won’t, I won’t.”

He pushes himself up and out of the waiting room and heads for the stage.

The Ballonlea gym is as unconventional in its setup as it is its gym challenge. A repurposed theater, used in the off season for performance. Leon nearly stumbles over a box full of old props and the thick, tangled wires of stage lights. He glances behind him to the gym assistant, who nods and shoos him forward. 

He brushes past a lush, velvet red curtain that rattles loudly as he passes. In the thin light filtering under the heavy curtain, it’s hard to see. 

The curtain lifts suddenly, and floodlights nearly blind him. It’s hotter and brighter than it is on the pitch, much more distracting considering how much closer they are. At least then he can convince himself that they’re not actually part of the fight. Opal sits primly behind an observation desk, her chin resting on folded hands. 

A gym trainer enters from the right. “You look nervous.” She remarks. “Do you have stage fright?”

“I - what?”

A spritzee leaps out of the nearest storage box, and Micah bursts from her pokeball before he can so much as summon her. The battle doesn’t last long, not between iron head and king’s shield, even with the stat drop when he fumbles his way through a question. 

“You’re more relaxed in battle.” She points out. “You should work on that.” 

The lights are dimmed, and then the next gym trainer replaces her.

And repeat.

Micah takes care of the weezing, while Vesta handles the mawile and grimmsnarl, and then she Gigantamaxes alcremie. The air of power around this one is stronger, capable of knocking him over if he weren’t used to it. This must be so routine to the gym leaders, who often aren’t even pushed to the point of needing to resort to Dynamaxing of any kind, who don’t so much as flinch under the great tsunami of power they’re required to stand.

Micah is quick to follow. It’s her first time Dynamaxing at all, so he can only hope all goes well.

She towers above him, staring their opponent down with a single purple eye. 

G-max Finale is an inferno of light that threatens to swallow the both of them, but before it’s even cleared, a row of steel spikes rip through the earth.

Alcremie reverts, followed shortly after by Micah, and they stay still long enough for the rotom recording them to get the footage before meeting Opal in the middle of the torn up pitch.

He winces. He has a bad habit of leaving the field destroyed.

“Your pink is still lacking, but you and your pokemon were exemplary. Here’s the fairy badge, you’ve earned it.”

“Thank you.” He and Micah slink back into the locker room and sits on the fact that he only has three badges left before the semifinals.

“You did good.” He reaches out to steady Micah, still shaking off the effects of Dynamaxing. “We’re getting kind of close to the end.”

She makes a sound of agreement.

And then his phone rings.

He sleeps through the entire ride back to Motostoke. 

How anyone could fall asleep in a rocking metal death cage hundreds of feet up in the air, Sonia does not claim to understand. She and Raihan leaned over several times to ensure that he was not, in fact, actually dead. They eventually manage to shake him awake after they land. 

He blinks away his disorientation and informs them of his impending meeting with Mr. Rose.

“Someone should make sure he doesn’t get lost.” Sonia whispers.

Raihan watches El drag its trainer by the hand through the crowded streets in the direction of the address. “... I think they’ll be okay.”

Oleana is on call when he arrives in the lobby, looking horribly out of place between the suit-clad, briefcase carrying employees. This office is precisely the type of place he shouldn't be. Velvet carpets and tasteful decor, a glass chandelier hanging from the ceiling, and black couches that no one seems to be sitting on. She sweeps a lock of hair over her shoulder and pins him in her detached glare. She turns her face to tap the com curled around her ear.

“Mr. Chairman, sir,” Her eyes flick to him, as if he can’t hear her, “Your pet project is here.”

She loads him onto an elevator to the top floor five long minutes later.

Mr. Rose’s office is big, and mostly empty. 

He’s offered a seat in front of the desk. He taps his foot and tries not to jostle Tiamat, curled up on his lap, too much. He’s lucky that he’s decided to spend the length of this conversation asleep and not otherwise wreaking havoc on Rose’s personal belongings. He’s a few levels shy of evolution. Raihan tells him that it could really be any day now, if he can keep their training schedule consistent, but the sessions that do turn out to be effective are thin and far between. 

“Leon.” Rose pauses in his report to smile. “You’re onto your fifth badge, yes?”

“Yes, sir.”

Tiamat stirs, before settling again.

“Ah, that’s the dreepy that escaped, isn’t it?”

“It is.” He nods.

“Most people don’t end up keeping dreepy since they’re so difficult to raise. I’m surprised you ended up committing to it. Are you looking to add a dragapult to your team?”

“Um,” He shifts. “Sure, if he wants to.”

He probably will, given his inclination towards trouble-making. 

Tiamat opens one eye fully to stare at Rose, and Leon tightens his grip before he decides to do something that will ruin this for the both of them. Losing your endorsement means losing the challenge and being sent home. 

“Now that you’ve earned five badges, you’re going to start attracting more attention. Since I’ve endorsed you, that also means your reputation reflects my organization. If you go further in the challenge, which I firmly believe you have the capability of doing, the media attention only increases. You have to set a good example for yourself and those you represent.”

“I understand.”

“I’m sure you do. You should think of balancing out your team a bit more, too. A wider variety of types would suit the nature of the challenge better, unless you’re planning on becoming a gym leader?”

He shakes his head. “No, I-”

“It might be worthwhile to look into competitive battle strategies as well.”

"... I will."

"Good." He looks over him, chin settled upon steepled fingers. “It’s a little early to worry about the press, but it’s always good to have a head start. This is about the time that sponsors start looking at the challengers. That charizard of yours has already gained you a bit of a reputation - rare pokemon stand out like that. You should try to advertise that dreepy more in battle, too, once it evolves. All that said, you probably have a journey to return to.”

Leon stands up, hoisting Tiamat in his arms, much to his displeasure. “Thank you, sir.”

He leaves the office as quickly as possible.

They're waiting for him at the entrance of the wild area, sitting on the steps in the dragon's maw. 

Raihan waves him over. "That was a while. What did he want to talk about?"

Leon shrugs. "Just publicity, that kind of thing."

Tiamat hisses and reaches a claw Raihan's way, aiming for his zipper. Leon pulls him back before he has the chance, and Raihan grins. 

"We gotta find a pokemon den..." Sonia mumbles. "You have to figure out how to Gigantamax Vesta without passing out."

"I didn't _pass out_."

"Sure you didn't." She looks out across the fields and points to a collection of storm clouds hanging in the air, circling a beam of violet light. "There's one! It's way down, though." She grimaces. "We better not pass that steelix again."

"What steelix?" Nessa frowns.

"Hopefully you won't have to meet it. We should go now, though, it looks like it's gonna rain, and it's a long walk."

Sonia sets off first, her newly caught ponyta at one side and Zeus at the other. 

"Well," Raihan glances at him. "Let's go."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -Piers was here for like 5 seconds  
> -I gave him a pawniard idk why it just felt right  
> -Opal is an... interesting character  
> -I think a big reason why the 'evil team' thing didn't work for me was because they didn't commit to it. Like, if they wanted to have the league itself be corrupt or something that would've been a great plot point but immediately after they were like 'oh yeah no they were working on their own' instead of them exploiting some system established by the league or something like that. It just felt underwhelming because the twist was kind of obvious and it lacked conviction imo. Rose and Oleana could've been better villains if they'd just... let them be villains


	8. Chapter 8

The Wild Area is infamous for its capricious weather, and today is no exception. 

Rain greets them early in the morning, sheets carried sideways by a cold breeze down the dry valleys of Giant’s Mirror. Sonia nearly slips climbing down the stone path, made loose by the rain. Leon’s shoes sink at least two inches into the mud before finding purchase in anything solid. Raihan, hunched into his sweatshirt, rainwater dripping down the bridge of his nose, looks less than pleased. Nessa doesn’t seem to mind at all. 

They slosh ahead for about twenty more minutes, past curious tympole and nickit. Finding dens is harder than it’s made out to be in the movies. The giant beacons of light erupting from uniform rocky wells would be much easier to find than what they’re looking for. He remembers the depiction of trainer life in all those movies he used to watch as much more glorious than it actually was.

More often, dens are hidden beneath foliage or deep in caves. Rarely are they out in the open, without protection - lest other pokemon get curious and find what they’ve stashed away. The stormy red they’re said to be cloaked in is more subtle; the implication of red under a stark green leaf, crackling static beneath your palms as you balance on a rock. 

Pokemon are better at finding them than people are, unless you’re especially attuned. Anyone who’s Gigantimaxed a pokemon before, _supposedly,_ can find them easier. It’s no better than an urban legend, but nobody’s been able to _disprove_ it. 

That’s the only reason _Leon_ is at the head of the pack, and not in the middle, where they can make sure he’s not wandering off, where he should be. 

He’d have Vesta out if she weren’t so disapproving of the overcast weather. It’s hard to see, really, through the thick curtain of fog rolling off the distant mountainside. 

The hair on the back of his neck stands on end, and he turns left. Tiamat raises his claws and makes a mad dash for the tall grass, which is even taller than he gave it credit for. It’s uncomfortably wet, and he should really give up on trying to keep dry by this point considering he’s soaked to the bone.

They bat away the surrounding pokemon, emboldened by the energy glowing in the den just a few steps away. 

“How strong is it?” Sonia crouches next to him, poking the careful arrangement of stones - another enigma. Whenever endowed with the peculiar energy that induced the Dynamax phenomenon, all natural nesting behavior unique to the species was abandoned and mannerisms lost. Knowing what level it was was very important considering a Dynamxed pokemon could easily kill the average unprepared trainer.

“Um… it’s just a three. We can probably take it.”

(Hopefully the technology is actually _accurate_ this time).

Tiamat sits on his shoulders. He turns. “Everybody ready?”

“Yep.” Sonia says, and one by one, they enter the den.

Whatever he was expecting, it wasn’t a mimikyu.

“Aw, shit.” Sonia says. “It’s got Disguise, doesn’t it?”

Leon shrugs. “Maybe?” The sheer amount of ambient energy inside of dens is what attracts pokemon to them in the first place. It’s almost dizzying. 

Raihan puts a hand on his shoulder. “C’mon, Gigantimax your charizard. You don’t want to pass out on live TV, do you?”

He grimaces, and releases Vesta into the air. She bares ivory fangs at the mimikyu, and he shares an uneasy glance with Raihan, before the energy collecting at his wrist reaches its limit. His vision tunnels into sunlight and flames.

The fight isn’t exactly easy, but it’s not all that difficult, either.

He rolls the ball around his palm. Eris the mimikyu is surprisingly friendly all things considered, but not above petty pranks, either (nowhere near as bad as Tiamat, but that isn’t really saying much). 

They visit three more dens, and Leon gradually acclimates to the sheer power that encompasses Gigantamaxing. Not everyone can do it - there already has to be a certain climate of energy, and both the trainer and the pokemon need to be suitable for it. Some trainers spend hours in dens hunting for pokemon with the ability to Gigantamax, but the phenomenon is so rare that they're hardly ever successful. Then there's the issue of wishing stars themselves - nobody quite knows what they are or how they work, and the science surrounding them is less precise than some would like to believe. Soemtimes they worked, and sometimes they were too weak to support a transformation of that degree.

Either way, Leon's head is spinning by the time they stop, and they take pity on him. Raihan goes to place a hand on his shoulder only to immediately pull it away.

"Jeez, are you sure you don't have a fever or anything?"

"I think I'm just... overheated." He manages after a minute. "I'm gonna go sit down."

Miraculously, he manages not to trip on his way over.

Raihan sits next to him on the rock overlooking the lake, kicking his legs off the ledge. Nessa is currently trying to teach Sonia how to fish. Judging by the fact that the hook keeps getting stuck in things that are definitely not water, it’s not going very well. 

The regal walls of Motostoke loom in the distance, significantly less intimidating than they were the first time around. 

“Hey.” He says suddenly. “You have a water type, don’t you?”

“Yeah, why?”

“There’s an island up there.” He juts his chin towards the middle of the lake. “There’s this old legend of some mythic shiny haxorus that lives on it and mysteriously disappears based on the day. Ridiculous, right? Like, how would it even get on there in the first place?”

“...can they swim?”

Raihan snorts, and takes another bite of his apple. “Yeah, sure, all three tons of steel armor _definitely_ won’t sink.” He nudges his shoulder. “Maybe it’s a ghost haxorus. That’d be right up your alley, wouldn’t it?”

“I already have a fraxure. I don't need a ghost haxorus.” He nudges back. “You want to go up there and see?”

“Yeah.” He jumps to his feet. “If we see it, we’re getting pictures.”

Leon stares at the water. He’s pretty sure a particularly mean, particularly territorial gyarados lives in there (which is one of the reasons that people don’t visit the island in the first place, aside from its somewhat intimidating reputation). “... I think there’s a gyarados in there, though-”

“It’s fine, it’s fine. They don't usually leave their territory.” Raihan waves him off, untying his shoes and leaving them on the shore. “C’mon, it’s gonna rain again soon.”

“... okay.” He turns, and waves. “Sonia! Nessa! We’re going to that island over there!”

Sonia’s answer comes in the form of a strangled yelp as she attempts to reel something in. Nessa, with one hand on her shoulder, waves back. “Alright! We’re moving on in an hour!”

They don’t stick around to see whatever it is they caught, but judging from the high pitched scream that echoes across the bay, it must be something good.

Dock glides across the water, carefully angling away from the bioluminescent jellicent lurking just below the water’s surface. They stare up with pale eyes, frills flaring in the cold current. 

They avoid the gyarados completely, though, which is a relief. 

They step onto the sandy bank and start to explore. 

A few axew roam around in the grass, chased by stufful and the occasional hulking bewear. 

“Those things could crush your spine.” Raihan remarks casually. Tiamat hisses at one stomping through the bushes, and the chase that ensues lasts a good five minutes. 

They collapse under a rock overhang, breathing hard. The shore isn’t too far away, glittering with pearls buried in the sand and iridescent scales. A crawdaunt scuttles across the sand, digging up anything it deems shiny enough with its oversized pincers. 

Leon stretches his legs out. He’s gonna be covered in sand after this. 

In the distance, a liepard lays draped across a flat stone, basking in the sun. It opens one eye to glare at them before returning to its nap.

“No haxorus after all.” Raihan says, his head cushioned on his arms. “Too bad. That would’ve been cool to see.”

The sand sticks to his shirt as he rolls onto his stomach. “How’d you learn about it, anyways?”

“Oh, it’s just some stupid story my Dad used to tell. This island was off-limits for a while, so he never actually got the chance to look into it. It’d be good to study, if dragon types can live here. My Mom has this theory that the weather has something to do with how few dragon types there are here - she thinks temperature might impact how easy it is to break their eggs, or something - but the weather here isn’t any different, so it might actually have to do with predators-” He shakes his head. “Ah, boring stuff like that.”

“I think it’s cool.” Leon replies. Tiamat is curled up on his stomach, so he’s stuck in this position. He cranes his neck to look at Raihan, who grins. “So, does Postwick have any cool stories?”

“Eh.” He shrugs a shoulder. Or tries to, anyways. “Home’s pretty boring. Pretty, sure, but there’s not a lot happening, unless you find wooloo _really_ interesting. Well, there was this one story about the ghost of a dubwool that haunted an old farm but-” He breaks off in laughter. “It was - it was really stupid.”

Raihan raises an eyebrow. “What was it?”

“It was really just a stupid ghost story, but there was this ghastly that lived there that liked to pull pranks. Sonia and I went over there a couple of times to see if the rumors were actually true - she-” He breaks off laughing. “The ghastly was pretending to be the undead dubwool or whatever, and Sonia fell back into a fence and knocked it over, and I fell in the mud, and we got back all torn up and scared looking, and we never told anyone that it was just a ghastly.”

“Wait-” Raihan grins. “You let everyone think the story was true?”

“Yeah.” He hides his face in his arms. “It’s - so _stupid._ Everyone believed us, like, they just think the barn is haunted, I don’t know how, I laugh every time I try to tell the story, you’d think someone would’ve caught on by now-”

“Oh my god. That’s fantastic. You country towns must have more cool stories, huh?”

“More urban legends?” He raises an eyebrow. “Um, well, there were definitely some about the Slumbering Weald.”

“That’s a pretty ominous name.”

“You have no idea. Fog so thick you can’t see, unnaturally cold. Phones don’t work in there - but that’s probably because there’s no reception that far out. A lot of ghosts. I think there are some weezing in there, and they cause hallucinations. Sonia went in there, once, to see if there really was some beast in the forest. She doesn’t remember anything about it.”

“Woah, really?”

He scoops Tiamat up in his arm and shifts so his back is against the rock. “Yeah, it was…”

Terrifying, really. The gate, carefully latched and secured from wandering wooloo, was open, the mist curling around the entrance, so thick that it seemed opaque, a living, breathing mass, extending past its natural borders. The fence had stuck out like jagged teeth in the maw of a predator. Sonia had this glazed over look in her eyes, almost dazed. 

Something crashes in the distance. Leon startles. “What was that?”

Raihan gets to his feet. “... probably nothing.” He says, but it sounds uncertain. Leon climbs to his feet and goes after him. The liepard from before is gone, and so is the crawdaunt. The earth shakes.

Raihan’s grip on his shoulder is bruising. “I think we found the haxorus.”

He stares up at it with wide eyes. It’s definitely bigger than the height the dex entry claimed. It’s not alone, either. It faces down a looming garchomp - the kind that he’s only seen on TV. The kind that aren’t allowed in the region. It bares a mouthful of needle-sharp teeth, covered in scars, rearing back to snarl. It doesn’t so much as look at them, but Leon thinks it’s much more intense looking now than it was on the reruns of Cynthia’s championship matches. 

“Shit-” Raihan says, turning to run, “We have to-”

The ground splits into pointed monoliths of stone. The haxorus swings a tusk, splitting the stone edge attack in two. It’s favoring its left side, and he realizes the right tusk has been ground down to nearly nothing.

A wall of stone erupts between him and Raihan. He hits the ground hard, catching himself on his hand and rolling away before another spike can impale him. The pokeballs that were attached to his belt scatter. He grapples blindly for a pokeball that should contain Pepper, and he instead releases a disoriented boldore. It blinks glittering yellow eyes at him as the ground shakes again. 

_Shit._

Garchomp’s dragon tail is parried by haxorus’ dragon claw. Leon glances down at boldore and desperately tries to remember its moveset.

“You know protect, don’t you?” 

He’d been hoping to get will-o-wisp in, to halve the garchomp’s attacking power, but in this situation, it was just as good. 

The only problem was getting between them, now. He watches in tense anticipation as the garchomp begins to wear it down. It’s clearly been trained for battle - although its attacks are ruthless, there’s a certain refinement for it - a trainer’s hand. This garchomp belongs to someone, or it’s been abandoned here. 

The opportunity comes. Haxorus is still turned away, awaiting a dragon claw that will surely down it for good.

“Protect!”

A shield of wavering light comes between the haxorus and the attack. He watches the garchomp’s yellow eyes widen, and it attacks again, more furiously this time. He can see the barrier wearing thin, cracking, but then boldore glows white. A vicious surge of heat follows, that burns his face and makes his eyes sting. 

A gigalith forms in its place, all smooth, navy blue ore and a thundering roar. Haxorus retaliates with a dragon pulse, only to be followed by a swirling flame - will-o-wisp.

He turns to see Raihan climbing out of the wreckage, Pepper by his side - except as a _dusknoir._

Raihan mirrors his grin as haxorus bats the garchomp away. Overhead, a corviknight circles. 

Garchomp is recalled in a beam of red light overhead. In the corviknight’s dark talons is clutched a silvery mesh net, and Leon realizes it's meant to drop a second later. He sends out Vesta, who soars over the jagged hills of stone and lunges for the net. It can’t protect both its rider and the net, so it takes off in a snap of dark feathers. 

“There’s someone else!” Raihan says, and points to the figure fleeing to the boat at the other end of the shore. They’re gone before they can be identified.

Raihan leans back against a pillar of stone, sighing in relief. “Holy shit.” 

Leon sinks down next to him.

The haxorus regards them with dark eyes. 

“Man, my Dad’s gonna _flip.”_

Nessa and Sonia find them twenty minutes later, once they decided that they were taking too long. 

Raihan deposits his phone in his pocket, already having explained the situation to his father, while Leon tugs at the bandage tied around haxorus’ tusk. It indulges him, watching with vague amusement as he reties the knot.

“What _happened?”_ Sonia gapes. 

“Um.” Leon says, quite eloquently. “Long story.”

Between Eris and Tiamat, Leon is being relegated to a human jungle gym. Tiamat levitates, it’s not like he needs to be sitting on his head, and he’d really prefer it if he stopped antagonizing Eris, perched delicately on his shoulder, because he is quite literally in the middle of whatever squabble they’re having. 

“They don’t like each other much.” Sonia remarks, side-eying him as they leave Hammerlocke through its East wing. Eris hisses and bats at Tiamat with a shadowy claw, very narrowly missing his ear.

“Okay,” He says, dragging Eris off his shoulder and clutching her to his chest. “That’s enough. You’re gonna take my head off.”

The conservatory has already made arrangements for Axew’s Eye - it’s being guarded by Rangers, just in case someone tries to double back for a second try. The main concern with removing it from the island entirely was that it would leave the axew already there (which were apparently part of its last clutch), defenseless should anyone try again. 

They pass underneath an old, decrepit bridge made of sandstone and Sonia shrieks as a galvantula approaches.

He can understand the sentiment. 

The ruins on Route 9 are even more convoluted than he was expecting. It was supposedly built that way to ward off spirits attempting to enter the city, but it was probably also to the benefit of the falink that march through the crags and elaborate, winding tunnels carved out of stone. 

The dry grass is ripe with haunter and gurdurr. They let Sonia lead them through a canyon of twisting stone, and she eagerly points out ancient Gaelic languages carved into the stone as they go. In one of the pits, accessible only by ladder, solrock and lunatone drift, “envoys of the sun and moon gods”, Sonia explains candidly. Supposed to protect from whatever it was they wanted to keep out of Hammerlocke’s walls.

Eventually, they reach the falink, a regular tourist attraction to see them stomping along all in order. 

Sonia thinks they’re cute. Considering they just trampled over his backpack, Leon is obliged to disagree. 

Raihan leans over the railing, grinning. “I dunno, Leon, the little suckers are kinda cute, if you tilt your head.”

“I should’ve let Eris eat you.” He replies, and jumps over the railing.

The end of their trekk, apparently, isn’t over there. Covered in dust and blinking the sun out of his eyes, Leon notices the very conspicuous herd of crustle blocking the only way to Circhester. Group? Family? A cast of crustle?

Because that’s _exactly_ what they need now, somewhat low on time as they are.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” Sonia mutters. “I thought they were solitary.”

Clearly, they aren’t, unless they’ve only united to block travellers from accessing Circhester, which, based on their luck, wouldn’t even surprise him. 

“Well,” Nessa shrugs, tossing her drednaw’s ball in her hand. “I guess we’re gonna have to go through them.”

They come out on the other side significantly more tired than they started, but even with that, Leon is sure he isn’t imagining the chill. Circhester is known as the city of eternal winter, and that reputation isn’t an unearned one. Downwind of several tall mountain ranges, the tallest in Galar, it catches the brunt of the Winter months and doesn’t ever climb higher than mildly-cold.

Fractals of ice crunch under his shoes, and the soil is stiff with permafrost. Dark green grass springs from the frozen ground, topped with snow and frost. Sneasel eye them warily from the grass with dark, beady eyes, and snover meander around the root, calling forth a powerful snowstorm. 

Sonia stops halfway to the bridge and nearly drops her bag.

“What’s wrong?”

She picks up something from the grass and clutches it to her chest. A snom.

“Oh my god.” She says, nearly in one breath. “I’m taking this with me.”

Raihan snorts, and curls his nose at the wide variety of ice types to either side. “I don’t get the appeal.”

Nessa punches him in the shoulder. “Alright, dragon boy.”

They stumble towards the bridge, and Leon doesn’t even want to consider how cold that water might be. 

“Well.” Sonia says, her breath freezing into a sheet on the air. “Welcome to Circhester, guys.”

Circhester isn’t quite as big as Motostoke or Hammerlocke, but it’s still big enough to be dizzying. Never ending shops, restaurants, hotels. Built with old, dark stone, bleached by the intense cold and pelting hailstorms unique to the area and the road salt so often applied to the walkways. The gym is at the highest point of the city, located above two sets of regal marble staircases parting around the Hero’s Bath. How there can be a hot spring in a city so cold is beyond him, and he doesn’t follow the explanation that Sonia offers at all. It's pretty enough, and almost always occupied. 

The gym itself is run by a white haired woman by the name of Melony. She specializes in ice types, and her ace is a Lapras. He’s at least somewhat sure lapras can Dynamax, if the last few gyms have been any indication. 

They end up checking into their hotel not long after registration. Their battle isn't for a day or two away, which gives him time to come up with an ample strategy.

He sits cross legged on his bed, listening to the low hum of the air conditioner despite the fact that it's still warmer inside the building than out. The glass is fogged up with condensation and the beige curtains so carelessly pinned to the sides right above the unit billow, and it's getting distracting. Lapras is weak to steel types, so Micah should suffice, and Vesta can easily handle the rest of them, and he can always fall back on El if he needs. Should lapras be able to get the upper hand, he can use Eris (her incredibly useful ability would absolutely be beneficial in that scenario)-

"Hey, Leon."

He glances up. Raihan is draped against the chair like a sunbathing purrloin.

"What's up?"

"That boat, back on Axew's Eye."

He drops his pencil. "... what about it?"

"Did you see the logo on the back?"

He frowns. "No, I wasn't close enough."

Raihan kicks his heel against the floor absentmindedly. "It looked like the Macro Cosmos logo - and I'm pretty sure they don't sell that model. I was looking into it earlier and I couldn't find it anywhere."

Leon gives that a minute to sink in. "You think-"

"I don't know." Raihan shakes his head. "I could be wrong. But... it just seems strange, because I don't know how they got a boat in their either, without special permission."

Leon rolls his pencil between his fingers, deep in thought. 

He doesn't like the implications at all.

The air condition rattles obnoxiously. He sighs. "Is there any way to turn that thing off?"

Raihan shrugs. "Nessa might know." He turns back to his phone, flicking at the screen every so often.

Leon sighs and returns to his planning. He can worry about all that later.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry this took longer than usual!
> 
> \- anyways snom are cute and I would die for them  
> \- oops the poachers are back  
> \- Sonia is very tired of these idiots getting in trouble without her. Leon is like... a danger magnet


	9. Chapter 9

Circhester is, above all, cold. 

There’s certainly the grande architecture to marvel at, as Sonia seems eager to do, demanding that they visit the Hero’s Bath before their gym battles. Sonia comments on the ornate columns and the art carved into the smooth white stone. The steam rolling off the water warms the air enough that Leon can afford to shed his scarf. Zeus weaves between their legs in tight circles, tail wagging furiously, preparing to lunge at the other pokemon lounging in the water right before Sonia stops him.

“If she’s this excited about wall art she’s gonna _love_ the vault.” Raihan remarks, burying his nose in his scarf and hunching forward under his parka. Between the four of them, Raihan definitely handles the cold the worst. 

Leon glances over his shoulder. “The what?”

Raihan blinks. “Oh, I forgot you’re not from the city. So my family’s kinda high up, right, what with my Aunt being the gym leader and everything, but she holds her tests in the vault in the old castle the nobility used to live in. There’s a bunch of artifacts and everything, and then there’s the empty chambers for battling so nobody messes up any of the tapestries. Usually nobody but gym challengers and trainers are allowed in there, but I can probably get her to give us a tour.”

“Oh wow.” He says. Tiamat reaches for his hood just before Eris bats him away with a shadowy claw. Tiamat doesn’t much like the cold either, but in the relative warmth and humidity of the Bath, he’s content to cause trouble to his heart’s desire which, unfortunately for him, is quite a bit. “That’s really cool. We should look around once we get back.”

Raihan grins. “Don’t get cocky, we still got two more gyms to go before we get home.”

“You planning on losing?” Leon flashes him a smile before returning Tiamat to his ball lest he get them kicked out. 

“Of course not. You, though? Might wanna be careful.” He plucks Leon’s hat off and holds it above his head.

“Hey! That’s no fair, you’re taller! Eris, help!”

She snatches his hat back, and he grins triumphantly. “Ha.”

Sonia, apparently done with her analysis, flicks at her phone and raises an eyebrow. Nessa rests an elbow on her shoulder. “What are you guys? Little kids?”

Nessa brushes a strand of long hair over her shoulder and side steps Sonia playfully pushing her off her shoulder with a grace that Leon will probably never manage. “We’re gonna go to the boutique. Sonia’s match isn’t until four, so let’s meet up back in the main square at two.”

“Got it.” Raihan promises, and glances over at Leon. “There’s a concession stand over by the fountain, if you want to go.”

Sonia squints at them. “Do you two think of anything other than food?”

“Hey.” Raihan says. “Food is like, at least forty percent of the appeal of travelling.”

Leon snorts at the look on her face.

Nessa takes pity on her and drags her out of the Bath. Leon rewinds the scarf around his neck and prepares to venture back into the cold. 

They meet up an hour and a half later at the main square, Leon with a styrofoam cup of hot chocolate between his wind-numbed fingers. Vesta is generally too large to be out on the streets (not to mention the potential consequences of parading a charizard of all things through the street), but there’s virtually no one around, and Raihan is shivering so hard he might knock the both of them over.

“It’s a _lot_ warmer in Hammerlocke.” He grumbles. “No _snow.”_

“It doesn’t really snow in Postwick either.” Leon replies. “But it does get cold in the Winter. All the wooloo grow really thick wool - like, twice their size. We almost lost Hop in the herd once.”

Raihan chokes on his hot chocolate. Leon laughs.

“I was trying to get them back into the pens and close up the well so the water didn’t freeze, and Mom wanted me to show Hop how to do it, but he got bored and I turned back and I couldn’t find him and I freaked out, and then we found him hiding with them and we just couldn’t see him.” 

“Man, the only story I have is about a disappearing microwave.”

“A _what?”_

“Yeah, you know how my house is filled with trapinch? Well those little shits like to dig. The entire yard is just covered in holes and one of them must’ve taken the microwave or something - god knows how, it’s not like they have arms - and probably put it in one of the pits. We never did end up finding it.”

Leon laughs. “The only thing the wooloo ever did was break fences.”

Raihan grumbles. “Try living with twenty of those little suckers - they liked stealing my shoes. Every couple of months they’d just go missing.”

“Did yours ever do that?”

“He was probably the one masterminding it.”

Leon reaches up to scratch Vesta under the skin. “You’d never steal my shoes, would you? You just burn all our curtains.”

In his periphery, two kids crouching behind snow forts pelt snowballs at each other. A snom perched on top of a lopsided snowman appears to be serving as a referee. 

“Guys!” Sonia waves at them from afar. 

Leon waves back, and Eris looks between the two of them before mimicking the movement.

“We’re a little late, so we should probably head down to the stadium.” Nessa remarks absentmindedly, glancing at her phone. Sonia blanches. “Yeah, I can’t be late.”

She latches onto his hand and proceeds to drag them down to the stadium.

Sonia wins her match with relative ease. Between an arcanine and a yamper, she secures a win relatively easily. The lapras might prove difficult, but he has Micah to fall back on. 

The real tricky thing, according to Sonia, is the icefall traps. Sitting in the locker room, flushed from the cold, her uniform dirty in some places, she huffs. “I think that’s the first time the gym challenge was harder than the fight.”

“I have to _navigate?”_ Leon pales.

Nessa bursts out laughing, and pats him on the shoulder. “Good luck with that, bud.”

The gym challenge is, in fact, a bit of a disaster.

It’s going relatively okay until the snowstorm kicks up. Nearly frozen to the bone, surrounded by ice pitfalls, with only his own uniquely terrible sense of direction and the trap detector provided to find his way to the nearest platform. 

It takes him a while - almost embarrassingly long - and he _does_ fall once or twice, but somehow, eventually, he makes it to the end. The gym trainer across from him on the platform laughs sheepishly at him as he all but wilts in relief. 

As the automatic door to the pitch slides open, he desperately tries to revive the circulation in his hands and bounces back on his heels. 

Vesta sets the battlefield on fire.

She probably would’ve fared fine as a contest pokemon, because upon her release to the field, she basks in the floodlights and roars. Melony’s Frosmoth dances around the first flamethrower, but the second one catches it point-blank. 

Darmanitan is next. Leon’s never actually seen one before, but even as the battlefield freezes over and ice creeps over Vesta’s wing, overheat raises the temperature quickly enough to knock out the Darmanitan and vaporize the ice to steam. Piloswine is next, felled swiftly by another flamethrower, burning white in the middle.

Finally, her lapras.

Gigantimaxing never fails to astound him, but he’s at least a little better prepared for it now that he’s spent enough time rooting around in Dynamax dens.

The lapras grows to cover the battlefield, its head looming over, so tall that it leaves the stadium, nearly touching the psychic barrier that protects the crowd from harm via a stray attack. Crystalized music notes float around it in a rhythmic circle, keeping on beat as it stares down with unblinking eyes, pools of electric energy.

Micah is quick to follow in her transformation.

She’s still smaller than lapras, but it doesn’t tower quite as much. Violet storm clouds gather above, growing as it rears back.

Lapras fires a pressurized canon of water.

Max Geyser nearly topples her. The attack pushes her back, and rain starts to drizzle around them. Leon pushes his bangs out of his eyes.

“Max Steelspike!”

The clouds darken as the attack hits. They’ve got another attack in them, though, and he can do nothing but tell Micah to brace herself for the second wave.

Jagged teeth of steel erupt from the earth and pierce lapras in retaliation. Finally, it goes down in an explosion of light, and the clouds above disperse as the energy level fades back to normal. 

The crowd cheers as the field is cleared, and he meets Melony in the middle.

She takes his hand and smiles. “That was quite impressive. You have all the trappings of a magnificent training, young man.”

He rubs his neck sheepishly. “Thank you, it was a good fight!”

He retreats to the locker room, still nursing the aftereffects of what he thinks might be frostbite, and fits the badge into his looplet.

“This is the worst route.” Raihan declares, looking at the sloshing channels of icy water before them. They’d left Circhester and the soft glow of pink fairy lights in celebration of the competition behind them, and exchanged the soft morning cold for the vicious, biting wind of route 9. 

“It’s not that bad, you big baby.” Nessa snorts, and releases her drednaw. He has Dock, sure, but Dock has made it painfully clear that he hates cold water, and seismitoad are a freshwater species. He’ll probably be fine, but he definitely won’t be happy about it. “I think they’re doing wailord watching out there.” She adds, glancing out at the open sea. 

“No way, do wailord come this far in?” Sonia squints. 

“I heard there’s a pod of lapras that comes over here sometimes. They’re endangered though, so you’re not allowed to catch any.”

“Ugh.” Raihan says, glaring at the grapploct swimming in front of them, just waiting for them to get in the water. “I hate those things.”

“Wait until you see one on land.” Sonia remarks dryly, and Leon shudders. That is an image he’s never getting out of his head. _Screaming_ didn’t come close to describing what they did when that thing jumped them.

Raihan grimaces. “Let’s just go already.”

“Hey, wait.” Nessa frowns, looking somewhere at the middle distance. “What’s that boat doing up there?”

Sonia frowns. “What about it?”

“It doesn’t have any flags - you have to have your flags to sail out here and that one doesn’t have any.” She glances around. “Is there a ranger patrolling out here? Because that’s definitely illegal.” 

And even if it wasn’t, the net containing something that they’d yanked out of the water definitely was. 

Nessa and Sonia climbed atop her drednaw (since the lanturn Sonia had caught earlier wasn’t big enough to keep her out of the arctic water) while he and Raihan got on Dock. 

Even cutting through the water as fast as they do, they’re not fast enough to outrun a boat, certainly not when it starts cutting back through the ice. 

Nessa grimaces. “Drednaw can probably get through it, but… that’d probably kill your seismitoad.”

“Wow, thanks.”

Nessa sighs. “I’ll go get a ranger. You guys stay here.”

They wait, stranded, on their little isolated island of ice that Raihan sorely disapproves of while Nessa goes out to find someone useful.

By the second hour, Leon thinks hypothermia is beginning to set in. Nym stands behind them like a fluffy space heater, Leon sandwiched between Sonia and Leon. Nessa got back a while ago and is in the process of briefing the ranger (for the fifth time) about the situation, and how that boat was probably looking for the lapras pod and might have even captured one, and he seems none too inclined to weigh in on the situation.

Eventually, they get him to call Melony.

“They’re _still_ talking?” Sonia groans, and buries her flushed face in Nym’s fur.

Raihan makes a similar noise of defeat. “We’re never getting out of here.”

Melony shows up twenty minutes later, dismounting from lapras’ regal back as she reaches the glorified iceberg they’re all stuck on, hands on her hips and appearing none too pleased. A little like he imagines Mom will probably look when he has to explain that he got frostbite. 

“Can someone please explain what’s going on here?”

Nessa sticks an accusing finger in the ranger’s face and begins to explain all over again.

The ranger sighs audibly. “I got here an hour ago. I didn’t even see the boat. But she described the one that’s been sitting around port a while and I’ve never seen any flags on it before.”

Nessa frowns. “You’ve seen the boat before and you haven’t done anything about it?”

He holds his hands up. “I don’t have jurisdiction outside the route!”

“Well, it was just _in_ the route!”

“And now it’s not! Nothing I can do!”

Nessa pinches the bridge of her nose and turns to Melony. “Can’t you do anything?”

Melony runs a hand through her hair. “I’ve been trying. The league is making it ridiculously hard to get a permit.”

“So there’s nothing you can do?”

The ranger shrugs. “The league is making it… difficult to crack down on poaching right now. All the paperwork’s slowed down and cases are getting tossed aside so repeat offenders are getting lighter sentencing. It’s a mess.” 

Leon peaks over Nym’s back. There’s something decidedly… strange about that. Why would the league want that? Poaching was the biggest threat to wildlife, much worse than their environmental policies preventing non-indigenous pokemon from being brought over, even by tourists, claimed. Considering the dragon-type population and the fact that the lapras population was apparently endangered seemed like something they should be concerned with.

He meets Raihan’s gaze, and beside him Sonia frowns.

“That’s…”

“Counterintuitive.” Sonia finishes. “But arguing definitely isn’t helping.”

“I’m sorry.” Melony sighs, and offers a tired smile. “Thank you for your help, though. Otherwise we might not even know. I’ll take a look back there later and see if the pod is still there. If we see the ship again, we’ll report it.” 

Nessa crosses her arms. “I just might do something about it.”

“I really don’t recommend vigilantism, if that’s what you’re suggesting.”

“Well, if the league’s determined to ignore it, someone should do something about it.” She huffs, and then sighs. “Sorry. Good luck with everything.”

“I wish you luck on your gym challenge as well, kids. I hope to see you in the finals!” She waves as she goes. Nessa trudges over, arms crossed firmly over her chest.

“This sucks.” She declares. Raihan leans into her side. “Yeah, but this is a conversation we can have somewhere where I’m not gonna freeze to death.”

She links their arms. “Yeah, let’s go.”

Route 9, aside from the horrible water way, rife with grapploct intent on ruining his day and sticking around for the nightmares, is almost nice. The sand, bleached white by the sun, is cool but significantly warmer than the water, and he’s intrigued by the dhelmise he sees in the grass. It seems equally intrigued with him. 

He reaches a hand over to pet it. Sonia and Raihan are preoccupied by being chased around by a particularly angry clobbopus. Eventually Nessa catches it just so Sonia will climb off the rock she somehow climbed.

Sonia leans over his shoulder, wiping the sweat off her chin. “You gonna catch it?”

He falters.

Rose didn’t want him using more ghost types because he considered them… unmarketable, and he already caught Eris.

He bites his lip, and stands up. “Um, I don’t think so.”

She frowns, taken aback. “What? How come?”

“I dunno. Just doesn’t feel right, I guess.”

“But you clearly like it, and it likes you-”

“It’s fine, really! I just… um… didn’t see many around so maybe I shouldn’t take it…?”

“I… guess?” Sonia deliberates, but gives him a strange look that he’s quick to brush off.

He waves the dhelmise goodbye and starts up the hill towards Spikemuth. This is where Piers said he was from, wasn’t it?

The door is only half open, low enough that he has to duck beneath it, and then almost hits his head coming back up. His foot drops into a pothole that effectively soaks his foot.

He grimaces.

Spikemuth is a kaleidoscope smear of soft pink light on wet asphalt. Despite the light outside, it seems much darker inside the city. Half of the street is cracked, probably from pokemon battles, left unpaved, cigarette buts tossed in the gutters and a showering of broken glass near the crate. In the distance, the distant pulse of loud music, the type played at concerts. He can feel the reverberation in his knees.

“Hey, you’re the forest kid.”

Leon turns to his side. There’s Piers, perched on a railing slick with rainwater, biting down on a cigarette. He exhales a ring of smoke, takes it out of his mouth and tosses it in the bin. “Don’t tell anyone you saw me doing that.” He slides off the railing, his hands finding his pockets.

He’s actually taller than Leon thought he was, but the slouched posture makes it easy to make that mistake.

Raihan stumbles after him, grabbing his shoulders. “Do you have any idea how hard it was for me to get under that door- oh, it’s you again.”

Piers raises an eyebrow. “Yo, welcome to Spikemuth, home of nothing much. We throw good parties, though. Gym’s that way, you don’t need to register.” He tilts his head to the right. “Just follow that street and don’t turn until you get to the old warehouse. You should see a bunch of gym goons hanging out on the crates - can’t miss ‘em.”

“We… don’t need to register?”

“Nah. Mom just takes challengers as they come. Most people don’t make it this far.”

“Oh, that makes sense.” Leon blinks. “Did you already get your badge?”

“Yeah. First thing I did when I got home.” He scratches at his ear. “Anyway, just follow the big neon signs and you can’t go wrong. I got places to be, see you guys later.”

“Bye!” Leon calls, and then turns to Raihan. “Hey, where’d Nessa and Sonia go?”

“Nessa saw a jellicent in the bushes and freaked out.” 

Leon forms an ‘oh’ with his mouth. “I guess we should find some place to stay, then.”

Raihan squints at the grid of apartment buildings leaning against each other. “Yeah, but no getting lost.”

Leon winces. “No promises.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- route 9 is terrible I hate grapploct so much so very much. Why do they move like that???  
> \- Spikemuth has a great aesthetic  
> \- League corruption would've been so easily to pull off why didn't they just go with that
> 
> Anyway thanks for reading!


	10. Chapter 10

Piers hadn't been lying when he said that not a lot of people come to Spikemuth. It’s not exactly a tourist attraction, in the traditional sense. It’s reputation precedes it. More often than not, it’s only redeeming feature in the press is the presence of the seventh gym. They do, however, have one thing going for them: the parties. 

Leon isn’t old enough to go to any of the numerous bars lining the streets (not that that similar age restriction stopped Raihan). He can feel the faint pulse of loud music through the wet asphalt. 

Spikemuth seems perpetually dark, walled in on every side by walls. Leon can’t tell whether or not they’re meant to keep neighboring pokemon out, or something else entirely. 

The street is dark and long and winding, none of which is a particularly good thing for his sense of direction and Raihan’s faintly ambling gait. 

“So…” Raihan concludes after a moment of looking at the street signs. Leon has long since lost track of where they are, or where they’re supposed to be. “There’re no hotels here.” 

“What?” He pauses. “But… it’s part of the gym tract-”

He shrugs. “I don’t claim to understand. But there’s no chain hotels here, and I’m not even sure there are regular hotels.”

“That’s…”

Well. That’s not great. But if push comes to shove Leon is more than capable of camping out. Sonia won’t like it, but they don’t have much of a choice. 

“Man.” Raihan sighs. “That sucks. We just wandered all the way around town for nothing. We might as well just go challenge the gym leader, huh?”

Leon squints at the smoggy skyline. “I don’t see a stadium.”

“Oh, that one I can answer. Spikemuth doesn’t have a power spot. Well, they do, but that land’s sacred, and nobody wants to build a stadium on it. The league’s gotten in so many arguments with them about it. Cut back funding, cut back resources, bad press - all of it. They won’t budge though, gotta respect it.”

Leon frowns. “Is it that important?”

Raihan shrugs again. “Dynamaxing is, like, our brand. It’s a tourist attraction, and if they have a gym that doesn’t do it - well, they don’t even have a stadium, so they can’t sell tickets, and they don’t get any revenue. Most people just _expect_ big, flashy battles when they come here. It's kind of what we're known for. This one is strategy based, but… well, I guess it’s not what some people are looking for, and the league doesn’t like it.”

Leon frowns. That’s not exactly a very positive image of the situation he’s painting. Could the league do that? Well, probably. Leon knew very little about the bureaucratic procedures surrounding the league and the way it functioned. For all he knew, that was very much legal, if not extremely sleazy. 

“That’s allowed?”

“Yeah, stuff like this gets passed ‘em all the time, my Dad complains about it constantly. Like, they didn’t want to fund the conservation at first because it would rescue any non-native dragon type that got through the border, ‘cuz none of the pokemon centers or hospitals are licensed to treat them. Kicked up a big fuss, the assholes.”

“Huh.” Leon says. “I didn’t know about that.” He pauses. “How come nobody knows about that?”

“It’s easy to sweep things under the rug when you own half the region.” 

Leon grimaces. They take a sharp right around the corner. Plastered to the brick wall sheltering them is a torn-up poster. The alley is littered with newspaper clippings and plastic cups. 

“I think it’s this way.”

“You _think?”_

They take another right, past a person with a magenta mohawk sitting in a booth and flipping through his phone. He raises his eyes to give them a cursory onceover, seems to find nothing notable, before letting his bored gaze drift bath to his phone. “If you’re here to see the gym leader, she’s out.”

“Oh.” Leon wilts. “Do you know when she’s gonna be back?”

“Do I look like I would know?”

Raihan glances, unimpressed, at the admissions list on his clipboard that he’s neglecting, filled with time slots that they apparently don’t use. “Isn’t that your job?”

“Look.” He pinches the bridge of his nose. “This is a part time job for minimum wage, I was told nobody would come through here. I don’t know where she is, and I don’t care.”

Raihan scoffs. “That’s that, then.” He sticks his hands back in his pockets and sticks a leg out, jumping off the curb. Neon signs hang on the apartment buildings on the right side of the road, fizzling with old fashion technicolor. Spikemuth is said to be a cornerstone of past and present, the jarring combination of old culture and new. 

“Wow.” Leon says. “That was… unnecessary.”

“Eh. Standard city people, I guess. Hammerlocke’s pretty bad around the edges, it just looks sparkly to all the new trainers just getting there. Like, this one time I was downtown, inner city, and I swear this guy was trying to set a record with how many swear words you can fit in a sentence. It was actually kind of funny, before he got arrested.”

Leon snorts. “Well, it’s never boring.”

“It’s never boring.” Raihan agrees. “I’m gonna call Nessa, see what’s up with her. Maybe they ran into the gym leader, who knows.”

One phone call later, they’re no closer to finding the gym leader and no closer to finding out where, exactly, Nessa and Sonia are. ‘Near the water’ isn’t exactly a great descriptor, and the scream that followed could probably be chalked up to the odd grapploct, but who was to say, really. In any case, using Vesta to just fly over the wall seemed like a good enough solution. Spikemuth doesn’t have a protected airspace like Hammerlocke does.

From so far up high, it’s easier to conceptualize the layout of the city. Instead of deferring to the coast to try and find Nessa and Sonia, though, Vesta turns towards the East. Flygon angles its head the same way, then. He evolved recently, all eight feet of diamond-hard scales. 

“What’s up?” Leon taps her shoulder. A few more powerful downbeats, and she directs them towards the forest at the side. She then descends into the trees, with very little warning.

He tightens his grip around her neck as she reaches the forest floor with outstretched talons, shaking herself as he slides off.

“What’s wrong?”

Cue the high-pitched cacophony of cawing in the background.

“There’s always _something.”_

Leon doesn’t know what he was expecting. Somehow, he isn’t even surprised.

The gym leader is a tall woman with long hair with the same monochromatic hair as Piers, who also happens to be present for whatever this mess is. Nessa and Sonia are also here, because apparently _Zeus got taken by a Honchkrow._

“The grapploct - there were seven of them. _Seven._ I don’t know what they were doing. I don’t _want_ to know what they were doing-” Sonia massages her temples. “But this - this flock of murkrow were flying by overhead and one of them just - just picked him up! And took him! I didn’t even know there were murkrow here!”

“They’re not _supposed_ to be here.” Piers mumbles. “But what’s border control gonna do? Shoot down a flock of birds?”

“Don’t give them any ideas.”

“Why didn’t Zeus just electrocute them?” Raihan asks.

“Oh, I don’t know, maybe it was because he was incredibly high in the air because the honchkrow was _flying?”_

Raihan grimaces. “That would do it.”

“This is all well and good,” Nessa interrupts, “But we still don’t know where they are.”

Piers winces as the shrieking starts again. “Oh, we know where they are. I just don’t fancy picking a fight with sixty murkrow and two pissed honchkrow. We won’t win.”

The gym leader sighs. “This is the second territorial spat in the span of a week.”

“This wouldn’t have happened if you hadn't made me get those dusk stones.” Piers offers unhelpfully. “Y’know. Just saying.” 

She glares sternly. “We have more important matters to be discussed right now, Piers. Such as the fact that one of the honchkrow is stealing small pokemon. Two meowth and a nickit are missing, and now Sonia’s yamper.”

“What’s going on?” Leon pipes up. “A honchkrow stole Zeus and there’s a territorial dispute?”

Piers pinches the bridge of his nose. “You remember those murkrow I was talking about? Well some kids started catching them and since there were no honchkrow all their little factions started getting out of hand. So we thought if some of them could evolve, it would stop the infighting. Obviously,” He intones dryly. “We were mistaken.”

A clump of black feathers falls from the sky. A murkrow shrieks.

“Now they’re fighting over territory and everything else, and it’s freaking everyone out.”

The gym leader releases her liepard. “She might be able to find your pokemon. I wouldn’t suggest getting in the middle of the conflict, unless you’re willing to lose an eye or two, but if you have anyone you want to send in, that might be helpful.”

Leon hesitates, and then lets Eris out of her ball. “She might be able to help.”

She hums appreciatively. “A mimikyu. We don’t see much of those around here.”

Eris jumps onto liepard’s back, and when no more candidates come forward, they journey into the underbrush, and Leon can only hope that the both of them make it back in one piece.

Raihan and Leon monitor the situation from the air, given they’re the only two with flying types. He never would’ve pegged honchkrow or murkrow as a particularly dangerous pokemon, but he doesn’t have any experience with them, and they aren’t even native to the region. Not that he has any idea what they’re doing here or why no one’s doing anything to get rid of them, but that’s not the point.

The first honchkrow - the female one, he’s pretty sure - rockets above the treetops angrily. Her plumage is a deeper, richer blue, and she’s significantly bigger than the male across from her. His shrieking would be quite impressive if it weren’t headache inducing and if it weren’t also nightmare fodder. 

“They’re so… angry.” 

Vesta looks on disdainfully.

A lightning bolt arcs up through the trees.

And that would be Zeus.

Piers runs out into the clearing. “They got them!”

Followed by a _furious_ flock of murkrow erupting from the depths of the forest.

Sonia screams.

“That was terrible.” Sonia informs him, tugging her fingers through her tangled hair. “This has been an awful day and they don’t even have hotels here.”

She drags her feet. Raihan and Nessa are already bounds ahead of them. Flygon trails carefully between them both, still adjusting to his new tail, startling every time he knocks anything over. It’s a little bit endearing. Vesta, of course, had set many a thing on fire before she grew into her tail.

Sonia looks a little rough around the edges. Half her hair is out of her ponytail and Zeus is clutched to her chest, perfectly fine despite his earlier kidnapping. The murkrow problem isn’t exactly dealt with, but it’s gone back to being benign, for the time being. Until a ranger can gauge the severity of the situation, there’s really nothing that can be done but wait. 

“Are you okay?”

She digs her heels into the street. He pauses, more taken aback by that action itself than anything else. 

“Hey, Leon…” She bites her lip. “How do you know you like being a trainer?”

“Um…” He’s thrown for a bit of a loop. “I’m not sure. I just… it feels… right? Like, I have to try, but it’s still fun, and it comes easy, I guess. Why do you ask?”

She sighs and leans back on her heels. “I dunno. I just… the rest of you all seem like - like this is what you’re _meant_ to do. It comes so naturally to you guys, but I just-”

“Do you… not _want_ to be a trainer?” It's a bit difficult to say. He, certainly, can't imagine wanting to be anything else. But he can understand doing something you don't want, and he definitely doesn't want that for her. 

She pauses, but the hesitation is enough to cement his suspicion. “No! I mean, I don’t know. I don’t know if I’m having fun anymore. I mean, I _am,_ but it’s so much different than I thought it was gonna be. It’s just-” She sighs. It’s a frustrated noise. “I’ve been waiting for everything to click like it has for you and it just… hasn’t. And I’m starting to think it’s not going to. And I'm supposed to want this like everyone else, and I'm supposed to know what I want to do and maybe I don't and that's-” She cuts herself off with a sigh. 

Leon shifts his weight between his feet. He isn’t entirely sure what to do. “Do you want to go home?”

“I-” She shakes her head. “I don’t know. I’m staying ‘til the end of the circuit, at least. I mean, this is a once in a lifetime opportunity, y’know? And it’s cool to see all the cities and people and pokemon. But… I can be good at math and not want to do math for the rest of my life, you know?”

Leon thinks he does. So he nods.

She sighs again, her shoulders slumped. “You’re not mad at me, right?”

He shakes his head. “Of course not! I can’t get mad at you for not wanting to spend your entire life doing something. You should do what you want.”

“But it’s not that simple!”

“I _know.”_ He thinks of his Mom and home and he _does_ know that it isn’t that simple. _Simple_ would have been staying and loving the farm and wanting to spend every day working there, it would mean that he was content with Postwick and happy to find joy in the smaller aspects of life - all of which are just as good, and maybe Sonia’s like that. Sometimes he wishes he were just like that, because he knows he could never inherit the farm and work on it and keep it in the family. “I know, I do. It’s okay.”

A little disappointing, maybe, that she wouldn’t be sharing in the entire journey with him, but… he didn’t want that if it meant she was unhappy, and some part of him is aware that at some point they would be turned into competition anyways. 

“Thanks.” She flashes him a relieved smile. “You’re the best.”

“We’ve known each other since we were five.” He replies. “You think you can get rid of me that easily? I’m insulted.”

She grins. “Sorry, I’ll try harder next time.”

“Sonia, Leon!” Nessa waves. “Hurry up!”

“Race you.” She says, and breaks into a dead sprint before he has the chance to process her words. “Hey!” He squawks, and races after her.

Spikemuth has no formal gym. Leon is almost inclined to say that he likes this version better. 

Leon leans against the mesh fencing, surging with the crowd as the battle reaches its climax.

“You’re up next.” Piers says. Leon can barely hear him over the roar of the crowd. A linoone brushes by his leg and someone spills their drink all over the cement floor. “Good luck.”

She leads with drapion.

It swings its hulking claws, the sharp incisors of its teeth click. Leon sends out El. 

Who has recently evolved into a golurk.

Sonia gapes from the sidelines. “When did you do that?!”

The drapion gets a crunch in, wrapping fangs sharp enough to break obsidian around El’s arm.

“Earthquake!”

The ground shakes and cracks and shoots up straight beneath drapion. It collapses to the side while the crowd cheers. 

Next up is the crawdaunt. Leon almost wishes he had captured that dhelmise, but he has Eris, so that should cover it. 

The air around her sparkles and shimmers, and when the crawdaunt goes for its first strike, the pressurized canon of water doesn’t so much as touch her. The disguise fades, the neck of the cloth head losing its turgor and slumping over. Two dazzling gleams and the crawdaunt is down. 

Bisharp next.

Vesta takes to the field, and the flame on her tail blazes and drips with molten fire. She descends from the sky in a tight kill spiral and exhales a brilliant pillar of flame hot enough to melt steel, knocking the bisharp out in one hit.

Finally, her ace.

He switches back into Eris to counter the urshifu that steps onto the field. It starts out with sucker punch, and Eris retaliates with a four-times super effective play rough. Once Eris is in range, though, it tucks its head to its chin and charges. Iron head.

_Shit._

He holds his breath as she’s thrown back into the ground, but she gets up a moment later. She finishes with a second super-effective dazzling gleam and the battle is over but, for a second there, he thought she was really down. 

She takes his hand with a smile, crossing the threshold to hand him his badge. “That was impressive. You’ve only got one badge to go now. I hope to see you in the finals.”

He grins. “You can count on it.”

Piers is there to greet them at the gate the next morning, when they're ready to return to Hammerlocke and complete the final leg of their journey. After the eight badge is a month long wait period where they get everything finalized, the tickets sold and the stadiums taken care, the advertisements and campaigns start with each contestant being promoted by a certain brand. Trainer cards will be in mass production, new uniforms and outfits, the entire region in full bloom in anticipation of the most famous event of the year. Of course, he has to win first.

"Might as well send you off." He waves a lazy hand. "Since you helped out n' all. I gotta stick around in case those honchkrow decide to go at it again. Kick the league's ass for me."

"Will do." Raihan grins, and Leon nods brightly. "See you in the finals?"

"Course. Good luck, you'll need it."

Leon glances back at Snia, engaged in conversation with Nessa. He decides his questions can wait until later.

Instead, he sets his sights on the last and final gym challenge: the dragon gym.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! Sorry this is late school has decided to be annoying.
> 
> (If that story about the swear word guy seems specific.... I've seen some things)
> 
> \- Sonia's character arc makes a guest appearance! Leon is not equipped to handle complex emotional conversations lmao me too 
> 
> \- The league is up to some shady shit, nothing new there


	11. Chapter 11

The journey back to Hammerlocke is mostly uneventful.

_Mostly,_ because Tiamat decides now is as good a time as ever to die and launches himself at a hoard of galvantula lounging on electric charged webs spun from the weathered bridge to the ground. Even the territorial liepard don’t go near them. 

Leon looks helplessly at the rest of his useless friends.

“I, for one, am not going near that.” Raihan says. Nessa pats him on the shoulder. “Yeah, you gotta deal with this one yourself.”

Sonia doesn’t even bother replying and just shakes her head furiously.

He tears a hand through his hair and runs after the selection of horrifying arachnid monsters. Vesta follows closely behind him, ready to burn anything that tries to interfere to a crisp.

Luckily, if nothing else, galvantula are typically dormant during the day, and they aren’t particularly aggressive. At least, there aren’t many cases of them attacking trainers unprovoked. Problem is he’s walking straight into their electrified webs. “I’m never letting him out again.” He whispers as he jumps over an overturned log, keeping his head low to minimize the chances of getting shocked. Size blue eyes blink down at him as he carefully (frantically) rushes to the other side. 

Vesta hisses at the offending galvantula scuttling closer, and it backs off.

“Where _is_ he - oh _god.”_

He had hoped, really, he had, that Tiamat would have spontaneously developed some semblance of self preservation. He doesn’t know what he was expecting. 

“They’re gonna _eat him.”_

Vesta flaps her wings, ready to surge forward and rescue Tiamat from a premature grave that he dug himself, but a burst of white, hot light stops her. Leon shields his eyes and Vesta wraps her wings around him, and by the time the impromptu evolution is over, a drakloak is standing in Tiamat’s place. Or floating, rather.

“He… evolved?”

Tiamat turns around to face him, ghostly, mostly intangible tail wagging like an overexcited growlithe’s. 

He _evolved._

He chatters happily, a strange, reverberating sound at the back of his throat and spins in a lazy circle, oblivious to the angry galvantula by his side, swiping angry claw-tipped legs at him as he drifts in and out of corporeality seemingly on a whim. 

“Tiamat, get back here!”

The galvantula sparks, and while the shock does little to hurt him what with the level difference and type advantage, he does look a little surprised, if not indignant. 

Vesta leaps forward and carries the both of them up and away from the tangle of webs. 

Leon glares at him. “You just had to be dramatic about it, didn’t you?”

Tiamat blinks big, yellow eyes at him, and fondly bites at his head. 

Beneath them, Raihan waves his hands, and Vesta descends in a tight circle.

Raihan takes a step forward to observe Tiamat’s condition, grazing over the electric burn and down the new, much sturdier scales. 

“Nice.” Raihan grins appreciatively. “I’ve never seen one of these.”

He scratches the loose scales beneath his chin. “He’ll probably shed in a couple of days until the tougher scales come in.”

Leon brushes his side. “They get tougher?”

“Oh, yeah. Diamond-hard, usually. Usually you don’t get that with ghost types, but you would know more about that than me.”

Leon shrugs loosely. “Yeah, most of the time there’s no so much physical change as an energy change. Maybe it’s because he’s a dual ghost-dragon type. There’s not many of those to study, right?” 

“I think they might be the only line, actually. I mean, aside from that one Sinnoh legend. Actually,” He pauses. “We can visit my Dad once we get to Hammerlocke. He knows more about dragon types than I do. Your fraxure evolved too, right?” 

“She did.” He nods, and Sonia and Nessa approach from the back. Nessa swings her arms around both of their shoulders and steers them forward towards the bridge that leads into Hammerlocke’s entrance. “C’mon boys, we want to get back before it gets dark.”

Leon sits in the lobby of the pokemon center, bouncing his foot. Sonia lounges in the chair beside him, flicking at her phone with a cerulean colored nail. She and Nessa are matching again. Zeus sits in her lap, blissfully asleep. 

They both have to wait until more phones become open. The entire city is awash with soft light, even at this hour. People are flooding the hotels in preparation for the eighth gym battles - these are always the flashy ones they catch on TV. When they arrived, they were surprised to find that they were automatically scheduled for the match, and if anyone wanted to back out they would need to do so manually. There were so few people still around that there were only twenty matches to be scheduled - and half of those people probably wouldn’t win. 

The lobby is filled with chatter and ambient noise. He spots Eris eyeing a woman with a conveniently placed purse, right at her level, and deliberately shifts before she gets any ideas that might get them arrested.

Between her and Tiamat, he’s not entirely sure how any of them are still alive.

“So.” He broaches the subject awkwardly, glancing at Sonia out of the corner of his eye. She looks back. “You gonna tell everyone?”

She sighs loudly, and slips her phone back into her pocket, disturbing Zeus’ sleep. “I don’t want to tell Grandma. You know how she is.”

He fidgets. “I mean - I’m sure she’ll understand. You just don’t want to. And you’ll still have all eight badges, right? So there’s still a lot you can do with that.”

Badges, though their significance had been diminished by the implementation of the gym challenge, still held significant value, especially in regions like Kanto and Hoenn, where badges quite literally made it possible to travel. As markers of strength, it made it much easier to decide who could go where and what pokemon they were qualified to handle. “You could get a breeder’s license with that, couldn’t you?”

She scrunches her nose up. “I _could._ I don’t _want_ to.”

“You need to do the whole circuit to be a professor, too, right?”

She nods. “But I don’t know if I want to do that, either.”

Leon tries to remember what it felt like being cooped up in Postwick, the endless boredom, the thorns of wanderlust tightening around his throat with every passing day, the disconnect between what he was supposed to want and what he actually did want. Now, all that yearning seems foriegn and childish, just sweltering, unchecked ambition characteristic of children, made smaller through experience. 

“Do you know what you want?”

“Should I?”

He backpedals quickly. “No! I mean, I didn’t mean it like _that._ Just… maybe pick a direction and go with it? To see?”

She sighs, and her frown deepens. The silence stretches, and he feels distinctly like he made the problem worse. 

Nessa comes back from her booth, flipping a long strand of dark hair over her shoulder. “Booth’s open.”

He looks at Sonia. “Uh, do you want to-?”

“You can go first.” She says, and slumps further down into her chair. 

“Lee!” 

Leon leans forward to quickly adjust the volume as not to disturb anyone else as Hop flickers across the screen, hands outstretched towards the camera. Mom laughs and pulls him back. 

“Sorry.” She laughs. “He’s excited. And he misses you.”

“Mom!” He whines, and then turns back to the camera. “You’re up against the dragon type gym leader now, right? When’s your match? Mom, can we go out to see it?”

“Ah, that’s a little far, honey. I don’t think we’d make it in time.”

He pouts, but it quickly evaporates in the face of his excitement. “You gotta win! And then you can beat the whole league and become champion, right?”

He grins, even as a crippling wave of anxiety and excitement crashes over him. “I promised, didn’t I?”

“Well, good luck with your match. Send us the time, and we’ll watch in.” Hop resettles against the cushions. “You saw Spikemuth, didn’t you? Was it like it is in all the movies?”

Leon indulges him, even though he has another call to catch soon, and tells him about all the ways that the movies lied and that it was way cooler in person, but refrained from telling _too_ many things. 

“-territorial honchkrow?” She interrupts with a laugh. “The situations you get yourselves into. Be careful, won’t you, dear?”

Something thumps in the distance. Mom turns, and sighs. “That dubwool of yours.”

“Cocoa?”

“That’s the one - she keeps breaking the fence. She’s got the new clutch, so she’s more territorial than usual - oh, boy. There it goes.”

He laughs. “You sound like you’ve got a lot going on.”

“You could say that.” She smiles, a touch tired, and reaches for the camera. “Talk to you soon, okay?”

“Bye, Mom. Bye, Hop.”

Raihan is waiting by the divide after he’s finished, hands folded behind his neck. “You were in there for awhile.”

Leon scratches behind his ear. “Uh, yeah, sorry.”

Raihan bumps him with his shoulder. “You good? Talking to your family?”

He nods. “Yeah. My brother is a little hyperactive. He’s just excited.” 

“Oh, that’s Hop, right?”

“Yeah.” Leon smiles. “His birthday is coming up soon. Mom’s gonna give him a pokemon.”

“Oh, that’s kinda a big deal. So why do you look like you just swallowed a lemon?”

Leon sputters. “I do _not!”_

Raihan grins. “Uh huh, right.” They walk out into the mouth of the lobby. “Nessa saw an old water type gym leader from Unova or something down at the bay and she dragged Sonia down to harass him or something.”

Leon snorts. “Sonia would love to harass gym leaders.”

He wonders how her conversation went. 

Raihan looks at him strangely, and then steps out the automatic doors and into the cool night air. He tilts his head in the direction of the gym. “Y’know… those wings are still open.” 

The night air is cooler and thinner this far up. 

Vesta is like a portable air heater, the flame at the end of her tail burning like candlelight. 

Everything looks much smaller, the city just pinpricks of light on a grid layout. Raihan leans against the railing. “You got a plan for this gym?”

“I’m thinking about it.” His hands are fixed firmly around the railing. Veta huffs, and her breath steams and folds on the wind. “I have a lot of ghost types, so I gotta be careful of her hydreigon.”

“Oh, yeah.” Raihan laughs. “Azhi’s pretty sweet when she’s not tearing apart the battlefield, but don’t mess around for her.”

“I’ll probably use Eris - or Vesta, if I can teach her dragon claw.”

“There’s like, seven illegal shops I can take you to.”

Leon snorts. “Only seven?’

“I’m surprised you didn’t ask why I knew that.”

“Of course I’m not surprised. We’re friends, right?”

Raihan’s smirk softens to a grin. “Yeah.”

He sits down under Vesta’s wing, a blanket of warmth. 

“So…” Raihan drawls. “Earlier. You good?”

“Um.” He says, very eloquently. There’s a lot he could pick from that - for one, Oleana has now taken to calling him _the charity project,_ and he can't decide whether or not it's worse than 'pet project' (and doesn't really want to think about the kernel of truth it holds) and she clearly does not have the time to deal with them. She mentioned that Rose wanted to talk about the ghost types again too, which wasn’t in any way reassuring, and he has to attend a meeting soon which is also less than reassuring. But there’s also the more precarious situation with Sonia. The last thing he wants to do is tell him for her. “Sonia’s having a… crisis… and I think I made it worse.”

Raihan shrugs. “I don’t know, you guys are friends, right?”

“Well, yeah, but this is kinda big. And I’m just not very… helpful? I guess? I mean, I don’t really know how to help.”

“I mean, I probably wouldn’t worry about it. You were trying to help, right? And if you did mess up or something, you can just explain and apologize and fix it. Simple as that.”

He leans back with a groan. “Well it sounds simple when you put it like that.” 

Raihan laughs. “Nah, you just overthink things. Don’t worry about everything so much.”

Leon lets the silence worm between them again, but it doesn’t feel too heavy, or too light. Silence in Postwick is the gentle background ambience of bleating Wooloo and the shuffling of the wind through the trees, the sound of the neighbor kids kicking around a ball in the grass. This silence is more active, a moving thing, that falls into patterns and fits evenly into the backdrop. Car horns and blinking technicolor and the steady movement of people below. 

“Your match is first, right?”

Raihan grins. “Sure is. I’m finally gonna get her back for all those mock battles.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Mock battles?”

“Yeah, when I was just starting out, we’d battle - and you learn pretty quick when your ass is getting handed to you. It’s kinda tradition, for everyone to get the eight badge, ‘cuz the vault is kinda something my family’s been protecting for like… ever.”

“Oh yeah, your family’s pretty high up, right?”

Raihan winces. “Uh, you could say that. Us and this city go back a _while._ But yeah, I get to be the test run so you guys can get a feel for her battle style. She probably did it that way on purpose.”

Leon returns with a grin of his own. “Like I’d need the advantage.”

Raihan pushes his shoulder. “Cocky shit. We should have a battle soon - an actual battle.”

“You’re on.” 

Raihan leans back with his hands folded behind his neck. “I forgot how nice the view was up here.”

“You’ve been up here before?”

“How did you think I knew about it? My Mom trains dragons for a living - and most of them have wings.”

Leon grins despite himself. “I thought that was illegal.”

“You didn’t break any rules if you don’t get caught.” He replies succinctly. 

The light from below shifts, bathing them both in sloping magenta light that accents his electric blue eyes. 

Raihan stands then, brushing his hands off on his jeans. “I have two missed calls from Nessa. We should probably go back down now.” He extends a hand. 

Leon takes it.

The conservatory is probably the coolest thing Leon has ever seen.

Professor Magnolia has something similar, of course, but they’re not actually allowed inside, because that could mess with the research she’s conducting. The closest he’s ever come to actually seeing the habitats was through six inches of bulletproof glass with a healthy array of exotic flora mostly blocking the view. 

This is entirely different, though, considering you can just walk through it. 

This particular sect is tropically warm, mirroring Hoenn’s wet, warm climate. Two kingdra lounge in deep, rocky pools of water, glittering with seashells stuck in conglomerate rock. Nessa kneels beside them and gets a picture of one brushing against Sonia’s hand. In the sand pit towards the corner of the room, a nest of trapinch are burrowed, watched carefully by the flygon he presumes to be the mother. 

“Most of them are docile.” Raihan’s father explains. “They usually come from trainers trying to cross the border without proper paperwork and get left here.”

“There’s a salamance around here somewhere, but he doesn’t usually come out.” Raihan says. “He’s, uh… not fond of people.”

“Nearly took off one of our volunteer’s hands.” His father says, and leads them left. A clutch of eggs sits beneath a leafy fern. 

A garchomp emerges from the mock-alcoves to the left, an entire system of twisting rock, perfect for hiding in. It lumbers over, lowering its neck and knocking its head against Raihan’s. 

“Grace missed you.” His father smiles. “Melody, too. She’s up there, somewhere.” He flicks his pen skyward and adjusts his glasses. “So, Leon, Raihan told me you have some dragons?”

Tiamat is, surprisingly, absolutely no one, not the most graceful of creatures. Some of it can probably be attributed to the recent evolution, but he flew into walls when he was a dreepy, too, so Leon doesn’t see much obvious improvement in that regard. He does however chase Raihan’s flygon in circles through the air while Asha watches from the ground, fraternizing hesitantly with the other haxorus. 

“Dad likes Tiamat.” Raihan comments from his chair. Nessa kicks her feet up onto his lap and Sonia sits next to him on the ground. There’s a baby jangmo-o seated in his lap, and they’re much heavier than their size would suggest. “Drakloak are super hard to find.”

Tiamat floats down, and when he does, Leon notices the dreepy on top of his head.

“... where did you get that?”

He trills happily in response. 

Sonia leans forward. “Another dreepy? But… where did it come from?”

“Huh.” Raihan says eventually. “Weird.”

They leave it at that. Raihan’s dad has theories about it, pages upon pages of notes concerning the Dragapult-evolution line’s unique biology, but he eventually ushers them off so he can feed the pokemon. 

They get the jangmo-o back to its siblings, and are on their way. 

The next day, standing in the lobby of the stadium feels strange. It’s all velvet carpets and dark, rich colors that speaks of a decadence that Leon doesn’t really have any place being part of. He can hear the roar of the stadium through the door, and Raihan is getting ready to go up to the pitch. 

Nessa clutches a bag of caramel popcorn to her chest and glares when he steals a handful. 

"I've gotta go." He says, clearing his teeth of the kernels. "See you guys soon."

"Good luck!" Leon calls. 

"Thanks." Raihan grins. "But I won't need it."

Sonia rolls her eyes and takes both of their hands, before dragging them to the stands.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- imagine if galvantula were real that would be absolutely terrifying  
> \- Giant electric spiders??? horrifying  
> \- Watch me channel both Sonia's uncertainty about her future and Leon's general anxiety about everything both at the same time. A double threat
> 
> Thanks for reading


	12. Chapter 12

The most dangerous thing about the twelfth gym has got to be the fact that gym leader Amira has two teams on rotation, A and B, and there’s no telling which one you’re gonna get, and there’s no telling which one she’s going to lead with. The gym framework makes it easy to set up type match ups, leaving the spontaneity to the semifinals, having a set lead pokemon, but fifth gym and up, they move it around. Point being, she could start with a flygon or a turtonator. 

The one good thing was that she always had her ace: a hydreigon that the sensible people of Hammerlocke had learned to fear. 

Not necessarily for her temperament, but her ability to rip through the battlefield, and an opponent, with frightening ease. It also doesn’t help that she’s notorious for recalling team members mid-battle and switching out, or that she was prone to bait and switch tactics, and sucker punch was always an annoying work around. 

Simple put: the reason one percent of the participants get through to the semifinals is her.

A flygon bursts onto the field.

“Uh oh.” Sonia says. “She’s using team A. Raihan’s gonna have a tougher time with this one.”

“Because she knows him.” Nessa grins, and throws another handful of popcorn into her mouth. “This better be good.” 

Her flygon is fast. It darts across the field, turning in sharp, disorienting circles to distort the noivern’s attention. A quick dragon tail sends noivern back in its ball, ready to be swapped out for its faster teammate. 

“Damn. I guess her reputation isn’t unearned.”

Sonia huffs. “I can’t start with Zeus in case she uses a flygon - or a dragalge.”

Nessa leans forward. “Oh _shit!”_ A tyrantrum steps onto the field, kicking up dust under its black claws. “You’re recording this, right?”

“Yep.”

Sonia wrinkles her nose. “That hydreigon’s gonna be a bitch to beat. I just know it’s gonna have earthquake. Doesn’t she change her movesets like, every week?”

Gigalith sets up stealth rock and narrowly avoids tyrantrum’s outrage. 

Sonia’s going to be leading with her lanturn, which is a good counter for three of the four pokemon she could lead with. If she leads with flygon it might be a problem, but Sonia says it’s a one in eight chance. He doesn’t know where she got that calculation, but he’s deciding to trust it.

Down two on two-

Flygon knocks the salamance out of the air.

Nessa cheers, and Leon joins her.

Raihan swaps for kingdra as the hydreigon enters the ring, and the crowd roars.

By the time it’s over, kingdra is out and flygon is just hanging on, before finally knocking it out with dragon pulse. 

The crowd roars. 

They cool down in the locker room while they repair most of the damage to the field. 

Raihan lounges against the lockers, flicking through his phone.

“You made it to the semifinals!” Leon grins. “What’s it feel like?”

Raihan rolls his eyes. “You’ll know in like, twenty minutes.”

Nessa chucks a water bottle at him as he scrolls through the pictures. “One down, three to go.”

Sonia was right, she _didn’t_ get the flygon. The tyrantrum comes out with earthquake, though, a move that it was lacking before, and knocks out her lanturn two turns in, down one to one. Leon watches as she fights, intuitively working with her pokemon and commanding them with ease, but she doesn’t have the same air of ease as the rest of them. 

The hydreigon emerges and knocks out three of her pokemon in quick succession. Zeus bounds onto the field, and seals the deal. 

Nessa is next. With her lapras, she might have the easiest time out of all of them, but that isn’t saying much. With a mixture of rain dance and thunder, the battlefield crackles with electricity and everyone in the audience gets soaked. 

Her milotic pulls through in the end, though, and then he’s the only one left.

“Good luck.” Nessa pats him on the back. She still looks exhausted. “That was hard as hell but I’m sure you’ll do fine.”

Raihan grins. “Yeah, Azhi’s a complete menace. Sweeps teams right from the get go. But you’ll be fine.”

That makes him feel… a little better, but those pre-fight nerves are still tight in his chest, curling up into his throat. It would seem like some of that anxiety would have faded by now, but like a muscle, it only grows with exercise. But, he’s excited in equal part, and the rest of his team brims with that same exhilarated terror that he chased down from halfway across the continent. 

This is what he’s here for, and after this - the semifinals. He promised Hop he’d win the championship, and he fully intends to follow through on that. He isn’t in the business of going back on his promises.

The light above the door goes on.

“We’ll meet you here after, okay?” Sonia says, and drags Raihan up off the bench, and he grins with sharp canines. “Kick ass!”

He smiles over his shoulder. “I promise.”

Amira wastes no time on formalities.

“Ready, kid?” She rests her hand on her hip. Out of all the people she fought today, maybe seven won. Leon is going to be the eight. When he nods, she tosses the ball, and he waits in tense anticipation-

Turtonator. 

He breathes through his teeth, and smiles. That’s fine.

Eris bursts onto the field at the same time. The turtonator doesn’t seem to like her much. 

“Mimikyu.” She raises an eyebrow. “That’s a rare one to come by.” 

It rears its head and unhinges its jaw, releasing a cloud of toxic smoke. Decoy takes the brunt of the damage, but as soon as it slumps over, he realizes that it doesn’t protect from the reaches of poison. Shit. 

“Play rough!”

She bounds forward, and Amira calls something on the other side. Heat billows under the ground and he realizes she’s setting up for a shell trap. 

“Get out of there! Shadow sneak!”

She blends back into the ground behind it, melting into its shadow, narrowly avoiding being crushed between great teeth of hot rock. 

“Flamethrower!”

The battlefield erupts into smoke and flame. 

“Pain split!”

There’s a bellow from within the smoke cloud. The turtonator swings angry claws as Eris leaps away from the hot flames. Leon can feel their intensity on his skin even from this far away.

“Crafty little thing.” She grins. “I like it.”

He turns to Eris. “Try again, but stay close to the ground like we practiced.”

She disappears into the wisps of smoke. 

Flamethrower, shell trap, smog, and he’s fairly sure the last move should be head smash, but that has high recoil and would probably end the battle for the both of them. 

He stands on his toes to see through the curtain of smoke, before he sees a flash of turtonator’s claws wrapped around Eris as she claws at it. It rears back, the stone on its head glowing white, before the smoke wafts back again.

Leon holds his hand up to block the gust of thick smoke. On the ground, in the middle of a ring of flames, both turtonator and Eris are down.

“You used shell smash anyways.” He realizes. She grins, the image strange in the red, shifting light. “I did. Figured that mimikyu would give me trouble later.”

She recalls it, and throws out the next one - the dreaded dragalge. 

El steps up to take Eris’ place, towering over the field, and over the dragalge. 

It tries for a quick, sweeping barrage of attacks, but it doesn’t last long. El is slow and generally clumsy, but sturdy enough to make up for that deficit and more.

The crack cut deep into its chest glows bright.

“Earthquake!”

The ground upends. Leon is only able to steady himself through practice and sheer will. They trained for hours in the wild area to pull this off without wrecking the foundation of the stadium. 

Dragalge goes down, but it’s quickly replaced by a much bigger threat: kommo-o.

He was relying on Eris to deal with this one, but it seems he’s going to need to take a different approach. 

The kommo-o stands proudly, head tipped up towards the crowd, metallic scales gleaming in the light like polished bronze. He releases Pepper onto the field. 

He needs to be wary of any dark type moves. This can’t be the first time she’s encountered a ghost type.

“Ghost type trainer?” She asks. “Don’t see a lot of those around here. Argenti, dragon tail.”

“Future sight!”

Pepper finishes the attack just before the kommo-o strikes him, returning him to his ball only to drag Asha out in his place. She cranes her neck, scales reflecting the glare of the sun, and roars. The audience cheers and Amira smiles appreciatively.

“Oh, dragon types too? She’s a beauty.” She tilts her head to her pokemon. “Dragon claw.”

It’s long tail lashes, the sound of scales striking each other like that of cymbals. Its claws length, bathed in cobalt light, and it charges.

“You too!”

Asha matches it strike for strike, before it comes from under with a strike from its back foot. It flips back and lands another strike, but leaves its flank open.

“Now!”

Asha claws down between the scales, and the kommo-o cries out before firing a point blank dragon pulse. 

Asha is thrown back, digging her claws into the loose, dredged up earth to steady herself. 

Leon steps towards her, reaching out, but she shakes the ash off her face. “Are you alright?”

She huffs in response. The kommo-o leaps out of the smoke, maw open and teeth crackling, but Asha counters the attack. There’s a burst of bright light that blurs his vision.

The future sight attack.

Asha leans back against the earth, panting, as the kommo-o collapses in a heap on the ground. 

“Alright.” She grins in a way that reminds him of Raihan. “Time for my ace.”

Azhi might be the most intimidating creature he’s ever seen. Three draconic heads, maws open, revealing rows of razor sharp teeth. Neither Asha nor El are in any condition to be fighting that, so he rolls around Vesta’s ball in his hand, and lets his signature pokemon out onto the battlefield.

She stares down the hydreigon before her, eclipsing her in size, and he’s reminded of the chameleon that would have fought a gyrados. 

“Stone edge.”

“Focus blast!”

She fires a blast at the stone erupting beneath her claws as she takes to the air. 

Bits of rock shards and shrapnel explode out, bouncing off the barrier. Smoke pours out of her jaws. 

“Ready, kid?” Amira shouts from the other side of the stadium. He can feel the Dynamax energy building up, and he reacts to it in turn. His bracelet thrums as the energy gathers around Vesta, and her fire burns white. The crowd _screams._

A dripping crown of fire adorns her head, an inferno wreathed around her neck, and she exhales a plume of fire at the charging hydreigon, even more monstrous in its size. A wall of stone meets in resistance, even as the edges blacken and start to melt into pooling magma. Cobalt energy gathers behind hydreigon’s jaws, and Vesta replies with growing claws and energy that threatens to consume them as the storm clouds above gather and pound under his sternum. Funneling energy one way into the link doesn’t work. Instead, he waits until his reach is reciprocated.

Vesta claws the hydreigon back, and the world erupts into flames. A winged vessel of flames drops down, different than they practiced, more together, and it ends the fight.

He stumbles on shaky legs, balancing against Vesta’s side, hide still hot enough to burn.

Amira steps gracefully over the rubble. “That was impressive.” Her eyes glitter. “You and your friends were especially fun battles. I hope to see you again in the finals.”

She presses the badge into his hand.

He’s done it. He completed the circuit.

He turns to Vesta and forgets his anxiety and cheers along with the crowd.

“Oh my god, look! Someone down the street just posted this ad for baby vulpix.” Sonia fawns over the admittedly extremely adorable picture. “Like, I can definitely afford that. They’re an alolan breed to - I don’t know how they got those papers, they might not be legit - but I can’t like, turn that down. _Look at them.”_

“Do it.” He pauses from scribbling on his napkin. Okay, they are really cute. “How much did you say they were?”

“Hands off my baby vulpix. I’m buying all of them.”

Leon laughs.

Sonia and Raihan slide back into the booth, pushing their glasses onto the table. Leon picks at the fries on the table and pulls his lemonade closer. 

“Man, so many people were looking at us.” Nessa grumbles. “I was just trying to buy food.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, this is great.” Raihan replies. “We’re famous now.”

“It figures you would say that.”

Now starts their one month break before the tournament begins. Leon and Sonia are going to head time, and Raihan and Sonia haven’t discussed their plans yet. 

“Man, I can’t tell you how many times she kicked my ass in mock battles. That victory felt so good.” 

Leon nudges his foot under the table. “Yeah, well she was still going easy - wait until the finals.”

“I’ll beat her again.” He asserts. “And then I’ll become champion.”

“Yeah, yeah, you attention hog.” Nessa rolls her eyes. “Eat your fries before the rest of us do.”

“Any plans for the month?” Sonia swirls her straw around her milkshake idly. 

Raihan shrugs. “I’ll probably just end up staying here for the month. Help my parents out around the conservatory, y’know.”

“My grandma would love to see that, by the way.” Sonia points her straw at him. “She might actually have a heart attack.”

“Well.” Raihan shrugs. “Most of it’s open to the public, so she’s welcome to drop by any time.”

“You should come to Postwick.” He blurts out. Sonia raises an eyebrow, and Raihan looks directly at him. “Uh, I mean-” He’s quick to explain himself. “You showed me your house and everything, and you said it’d be cool to see the farm-”

“No, no, that’s a great idea.” Raihan smiles, straight white teeth. “Let’s do it.”

“Nessa,” Sonia turns. “Do you wanna come too?”

“I don’t know if I’d be able to stay.” She says. “My Dad promised to take me over to Hoenn to see some other water types, but I might be able to drop by.”

“Great.” Sonia smiles. “It’s decided. And your Mom loves company.”

It’s because she never really gets it, and the house had seemed empty now that Dad was gone (now that he was gone, too, but that line of thought makes him feel guilty), and living in the middle of nowhere with three miles of land between every residence hadn't exactly helped that.

Raihan smiles, and some of the guilt evaporates. “Cool. You gotta show me all the wooloo.”

Rose’s office is much like the last time he was here. Ornate, decadent furnishings and polished mahogany desks that have just the right sheen in the light, velvety leather and casual opulence the likes he’s never been exposed to. He feels underdressed next to Rose’s crisp suits and the big glass walls lending a view of all the city. It’s big and cold and unforgiving, and Leon has no place here. 

Except he does now, and he’s expected to carve it out himself. 

Rose barely looks up as he’s filling out his paperwork. It reminds him a little of how Oleana doesn’t like to look at him. She’s quieted a little with the ‘pet’ references though, which is nice. 

“Leon,” He says, tone warm unlike the artificial cold of the too-big office. “Fantastic news, you have your first sponsor! Now, the process of endorsement and advertisement is complicated, but I’ll have someone walk you through it. You’re a smart kid, I’m sure you’ll catch on quick.”

He turns the page sharply. “Now, on that subject, your sponsors are going to carry you through this event - the endorsement ends after you’ve completed the circuit, and the league spots you the money, but with sponsors you have a little more control over what you get. That being said, there are a few restrictions as well.”

“Restrictions?” He repeats anxiously. Tiamat is too big to bring into the meetings anymore, and security hadn't trusted Eris to behave herself. 

“Ah, don’t look so worried. Just a few team modifications - nothing big, celebrities change their teams all the time. See, the majority of your team is made up of ghost types, and those are significantly less palatable. Now, your dreepy - or drakloak, is it? - is fine, he seems like one of your more popular team members. The mimikyu can stay, too. They’re rare enough, and dual fairy ghost types are unique.”

“Now, about the dusknoir and golurk, though. You may want to consider swapping them off your team.”

Leon startles. “But-”

“I know, it’s difficult to ask that of any trainer.” Rose says slowly, looking up from his document. Leon resists the urge to squirm. “To bench their beloved partners, but you have to remember this is your career, as well. Sometimes you have to make sacrifices. At least, you should try reducing their battle time. You don’t want to miss your opportunity with this sponsorship.”

His hands migrate to the arms of the chairs.

“I apologize for the way I phrased that, that was a callous oversight. It would be cruel to ask a such a young trainer to release their pokemon. But for your own sake - and for the sake of your career - you might want to consider taking them up on this offer.”

His career, which was currently helping funds go to Mom, and the career that he had been chasing after for as long as he could remember.

“... I’ll think about it.” He says eventually, the words stuck on his tongue, and swallows thickly. It feels a little like a betrayal. 

“Fantastic.” He brightens. “Then I’ll talk to you next week to consult with them. Do rest up for the semifinals, we want to see you at your best.”

“Thank you.”

He stands up, closes the heavy door behind him, and collects himself.

“Bye!” Raihan waves goodbye as they stand by the terminal. Nessa is getting on the train so she can get home, promising to visit in a couple days if time permitted, already boarded and ready to go. Through the window, she waves back as the train starts to move.

He already said goodbye to his parents and aunt earlier, and they were ready to call a corviknight taxi.

Usually the system was so backed up you had to wait hours if it wasn’t an emergency, but the system appealed to the people who had money, and there were people volunteering to bring them home, which was about the strangest part of it.

He slides into the end of the seat inside the carrier. Raihan clambers in after him, then Sonia, and the door swings shut. 

“There better be as many wooloo as you said.” Raihan says. The metal creaks as they take to the air. 

“Oh,” Sonia replies. “There’ll be more. Whatever number you’re thinking, there’s more.”

Leon laughs. “Man, I can’t wait to see everyone.”

“Hop’s going to have a heart attack.”

He and Sonia dissolve into giggles and Raihan looks at them strangely. “What?”

“You’ll see.”

The city blocks eventually fade into countryside, the powerful downbeat of the corviknight’s wings.

Leon is going home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm bad at writing battles I'm sorry if this is incomprehensible.
> 
> Rose is a dick! Terrible. At least Raihan is coming home for vacation to essentially 'meet the parents' lol
> 
> Thanks for reading :)


	13. Chapter 13

The corviknight drops them off at the mouth of Wedgehurst near the train station, bustling with life. The boutiques are overflowing as they’re prone to just before the turn of the season, mothers tutting about children in bright new colorful jackets for the coming school year. Summer hasn’t yet surrendered to the cool chill of Autumn, but the temperatures will drop soon. For now, blocky arrangements of haystacks topped with ceramic gourgeist statues in black honchkrow witch hats sit outside the store entryways, seasonally appropriate wreaths of multicolored leaves hanging from the window displays. 

Wedgehurst has an… _interesting_ relationship with ghost and dark types befitting the season, as does Motostoke and, to a lesser extent, Hammerlocke. The nickit population is still recovering from the dark-type purge a hundred years ago, and all the honchkrow in the region were exterminated entirely - well, aside from the illegally-migrating flock that seems to prefer Spikemuth. Postwick, already believed to be infested with ghosts, was left out of that particular trend, thankfully.

“This is where you live” Raihan turns to look over his shoulder at the old dirt road. 

“No, this is Wedgehurst. Corviknight don’t usually go as far out as Postwick.”

“Wow, it’s really out there, then.”

Leon grins. “Yep!”

Where the road narrows is where the old, dilapidated sign is, just like he remembers it, if a little worse for wear. The population scribbled into the corner is entirely gone now, scraped off by harsh wind and rain. In the breeze, the tall, dry grass sways. 

Leon lets Vesta out of her ball to stretch her wings.

“Hey, you remember this place?”

She swivels her head around, and brightens instantly.

Sonia scoffs. “You make it seem like it’s been ten years. We weren’t gone that long.”

“Yeah,” He admits sheepishly. “But still.”

The dirt path winds up through the valley, occasionally branching off into smaller paths that he assumes to be hiking paths. He can probably explore those now, considering he’s completed the gym circuit. He remembers the way perfectly, path quickening when he spots the low roof of the Haymarket in the distance. 

The old woman who liked to tell stories by candlelight of the great freeze of her childhood, when the fog from the weald had swept over the town and the temperatures had dropped below freezing, waves to them from her stall, balancing on her cane. 

“The sky is really clear out here.” Raihan remarks. His Flygon drifts behind them, circling in the air and chasing Vesta in lazy circles, the world’s laziest game of tag. 

“What’d they do to the fire pit?” Sonia asks, kicking at the circle of blackened rocks surrounding a pit of ash and charcoal. That’s where the kids came to listen to stories and roast peaches and apple slices over the fire. 

“Forgot to clean it out.” He rolls his eyes.

The schoolyard is empty, some younger children playing on the concrete square that constituted their playground. They pause to glance up at and point to the pokemon flying in the air. 

And further still to their house.

Sonia whistles. “You didn’t say your Mom was renovating.”

“She wanted it to be a surprise.” He pushes open the wrought iron gate, nearly hanging off of rusted hinges, glaring in the open sunlight. The overgrown ivy wall bifurcates their property with the neighbor’s. Their house isn’t for an acer down at least, but it squares in their wooloo’s feeding grounds and the new litter of yamper that herds them. He’s pretty sure they own the breeding ground for the region’s signature elemental starters, too. It’s also good from keeping their… _energetic_ dubwool from causing any more property damage.

“She takes after you.” Sonia would say from the ground, as he swung his legs from the ledge, pelting the nearest acorn trees with empty shells to see what they could hit. 

Before they get so much as a change to climb the first step, Hop all but kicks the door down and flies down the path. Leon just has enough time to spot the egg in his arms while Mom yells _“Be careful!”_ from the doorway and Hop barrels into him with enough force to nearly topple them both over. 

“Lee!” He nearly shrieks. “You’re back! You gotta tell me about all the cool things you saw and show me your pokemon and look I got an egg and it’s gonna hatch soon-!” 

Mom walks outside and spares them a sheepish smile, placing a hand on Hop’s head while he almost shakes with excitement. “Sorry about him, he’s just excited.” She turns to him. “It’s good to have you home, honey.”

The curtains are still singed. It’s the first thing he notices about the living room.

Not much has changed. The rug was swapped out for a new, fluffier one, no doubt spun from wooloo wool, and Puff the wooloo is curled up next to the space heater.

Eris jumps on the cushions and indulges Hop’s eager fawning over her. He doesn’t dare let Tiamat out because, although the living room would allow his size, he’s not well behaved enough to stop knocking things over. 

“I wanna see the rest of your team!” Hop bounces up and down on the couch, startling Eris, who hisses and jumps back into his hood. “Please?”

He glances over his shoulder at Raihan, and grins. “Hey, remember that battle you promised?”

Mom raises an eyebrow from the kitchen. Lunch is still cooking. “As long as you’re in before the food’s ready. And try to limit the property destruction.”

Sonia smiles. “They’ve gotten better at that.”

“We will!” Leon promises, grabbing Raihan and yanking him back outside.

The wooloo herd is out grazing and Raihan is at least a little impressed.

“You were _not_ lying when you said there were a lot of them.”

“I never lie.” Sonia replies haughtily, which in itself is a lie, and hops onto the wall. “If you get close enough they’ll realize someone from out of town is here and try to trample you.”

He picks at the clumps of wool stick to his hoodie. “You mean Puff isn’t the exception?”

“She’s the rule.” Sonia crosses one leg over the other. “They’re easy to raise because of their good temperament. Well, until you try to shear them. Then I’m pretty sure they’d try to eat you.”

Leon emerges from the other side of the field, after patching a collapsed part of the fence.

“Okay! I’m ready!”

Raihan grins back. “You can have the first move.”

Sonia kicks her legs. “Don’t hit the herd!”

The battle isn’t really serious, but Hop eats the theatrics up anyways.

Vesta and Flygon tussle in the air. The occasional, weak flamethrower punctuates the slow choreography with bursts of orange light. On the ground, Tiamat flits around Goodra’s head, fluctuating between his tangible and non-corporeal forms. Asha faces off against his Turtanator, perhaps the most serious of the three, hacking at its stone shell.

Hop cheers loudly on the sidelines, pumping a fist in the air as Vesta swoops down through the air and does a flip. The egg sits upon a tangled nest of blankets, placed carefully next to him on the grass. The wooloo bleat in the distance, like a substitute for a roaring crowd.

Raihan turns to grin as Flygon drives Vesta back, the edge of his profile dipped in light.

Leon turns away. “Hop! You wanna take a ride?”

Vesta flies close to the ground, if only to placate Mom’s wishes. She graces the grass with a claw, angling a wing as they pass over the wooloo for Hop to wave. He shrieks in delight as she dips and straightens out, turning in a sharp circle to land again on the ground. 

Hop stumbles off her back and Leon lurches to catch him, but Vesta steadies him with a claw. 

“That was _awesome!”_

“Yeah, she’s a good flier.” Leon grins. “Did I tell you about how she saved us from a steelix?”

“No!”

Leon ushers him back inside, turning around to laugh with Sonia and Raihan.

Sunset comes quickly. 

They sit outside, and Raihan and Leon regale Hop with their tales of the Wild Area, mostly dramaticized, but not entirely. Hop turns around to beg Mom to let him go on his own journey, but that idea doesn’t last very long before it’s shut down. 

“Who’d help me with the farm?” She asks, and Hop frowns and sits down next to you. “Oh, you’re right.”

He winces, and hopes it doesn’t show.

“You can see the stars really good out here.” He says instead, looking back up at the darkening sky. “No light pollution.”

“I used to know all the constellations.” Sonia says, leaning back on her hands. “I’m out of practice.”

She sits up, wiping the dirt off on her pants. “I should probably get going. I told Grandma that I’d be staying with her tonight.”

“Are you going to get back alright?” Mom asks, brow creased. Sonia grins. “I’m flying back, I’ve got a Sigilyph, but thanks.” 

She turns in for the night, waving goodbye before setting off for home. 

Raihan sets up his sleeping bag in the room Leon hasn’t used in quite a while, the sheets folded and clean nevertheless. Postwick has always been too quiet, a startling contrast from the howling wind and the hum of air conditioners and the rustling of leaves and creatures prowling in the underbrush. He spent enough time thinking about what it would be like to take on the gym challenge staring at this very same ceiling, and now it feels… different. 

Raihan snores, interrupting his train of thought. He bites down a smile, turns over in his bed, and falls asleep.

_“Why_ did you get me up so early, exactly?” Raihan groans, rubbing his eyes and attempting to burrow deeper into his sweatshirt. The grass is wet with morning dew, some patches studded with the beginnings of hoarfrost. 

“Gotta make sure the water didn’t freeze.” He replies, jumping the fence. “It’s probably better if you stay over there - you’ll get stampeded.”

Raihan squints. “Is that even a word?”

“Well, I say it’s a word.”

Cherry the dubwool tries to headbutt him in the ribs. He grabs her horns and scratches under her chin. “I missed you too.”

The water is fine, and so is the feed. Peach, or Cracker, he can never tell between them, bumps him on the hip, and then begins to chew on his sleeve. “Hey! Stop that!”

Peach-Cracker pouts and draws away with an unhappy sound. A sea of wooloo are quick to take his place. 

“Hey, guys, I missed you too, but can you please let me check the hatchery?”

Mom makes him check it every morning - or, she did - after that one year a Theival broke in and smashed everything that it didn’t eat. 

Everything is fine there, as well, and now he has the rest of the day to himself.

Raihan looks like he’s asleep on his feet, or like he’s trying to be. Leon crosses over the fence again, shaking away Peach-Cracker when he tries to untie his shoes.

“Was that all you had to do?”

“Yeah, but we can do something else.”

Raihan raises a brow. “Like?”

He releases Vesta, and climbs atop her shoulders. “Follow me.”

In the gray morning light, the countryside seems to glitter. Rows of corn and tall, swaying sawgrass color the rolling hills, sheltered by the snow-tipped mountain caps to the South. The tightly-knitted trees of the Weald grow to the West, early-morning fog wrapping around their old, broad trunks.

Raihan follows close behind him. 

“See that house up there?” He points. “That’s the one everybody thought was haunted. And those trees - that’s the Weald.” Vesta spurs them forward and makes a sharp turn, positioning them back towards the mountains. “A little farther!” He yells. 

If Raihan can hear him over the wind, he doesn’t make any indication of it, but he does follow, right on Vesta’s tail. 

The wind whips in his hair, cold enough to needle under his skin, but the view from the mountain peaks is indescribable. They’d hiked up it one morning when Dad was still alive, and he’d complained all the way up, but the view had made it worth it. This early in the morning, from this angle, he hopes it’ll be just as good. 

Raihan catches up a moment later, hovering in the air next to him. “What is it-?”

The sun crests between the two snow-capped mountains, the sky a dazzling gradient of warm pink and orange to purple and blue, a spattering of clouds in his periphery straight out of a portrait.

“... oh, wow.”

“Bet you can’t get something like this in Hammerlocke.”

Part of the appeal was the hiking up - dragging yourself up a mountain and being rewarded with this. They hover for a bit longer, before Raihan turns with the glint of challenge on his smile.

“Wanna race back?”

Leon taps Vesta’s shoulder. “You’re on.”

Vesta pulls ahead by a hair, shooting over the roof and past the field to the other side of the house, the momentum carrying them forward. Raihan shouts behind them, half laughing, and speeds up. 

Vesta starts in her spiral, descending to the ground, but gravity is no kinder than momentum and the moment she touches down, he’s nearly thrown from her shoulders. He slides off her back in a heap and lays in the grass, heaving quick breaths close to laughter. His legs are cramped and sore - they’d flown for at least a few hours, and he was out of practice, to say the least.

He reaches over to scratch her head, and she blows steam in his face.

Raihan crouches next to him. “You good?”

“Yeah, I’m just gonna stay here for a minute.”

Hop’s egg hatches in the middle of lunch.

Sonia is talking to Nessa, who sends a picture of the kingdra she found off Hoenn’s coast, when Hop starts screaming.

Leon is the first out of the door, ready to gauge the problem, only to find Hop sitting cross-legged on the ground, scattered shards of eggshell on the grass beside him, and a wooloo perched on his lap. 

He sighs in relief, and kneels in front of him.

“Look!” 

Leon smiles. He’s hatched enough wooloo to know the makings of a healthy one, and this one certainly looked it. “Let’s go inside, I bet Mom wants to see it.”

“Yeah!” He darts up, hauling the wooloo with him.

“Careful!”

“Oh, sorry.” He pats it on the head. “C’mon, let’s go show Mom!”

There's a certain degree of comfort to watching old recorded battles from the comfort of his house, on the glowing screen of the TV from the couch and not from his phone in a hotel room, or on the curb while he waited for Sonya, rewinding sections of the battles to get a better grasp on the battling style of his opponents. In this stage of the competition, it wasn't unusual to swap out your team or rotate between battles to throw an opponent's lineup, but it was much harder to change your battle style entirely. The clock on the stand tells him that its past midnight, and he's only through half of the videos he wants to see. 

Hop fell asleep a little earlier, watching reruns of last year's championship. It was recorded shoddily because he didn't want to pay fifteen dollars for the league-endorsed version, but it got the point across all the same. And if all went well, Leon would be fighting for the championship title. There was also no way to know who he'd be fighting and who'd get knocked out of the competition before he was slotted to fight them. He pauses on this one's ace, a gallade. There are more participants this year, so the semifinals will be longer. They might cut out the leader part entirely, depending on how long it takes.

He gets up to drape a blanket across Hop before resettling on the couch, his chin balanced on his hand, and settles in for the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not me spending a truly ridiculous amount of time trying to figure out how all pokemon species have eggs. Like how does a wooloo hatch from one. Are the eggs really big or are the wooloo really small?? 
> 
> Anyways this is mostly a transitional chapter and a way of exploring relationships. There'll be another chapter (and maybe part of the chapter after that, i'm not sure yet) before the semifinals and the plot will kick back in again
> 
> Thanks for reading :)


	14. Chapter 14

Leon settles back into home life more quickly than he would like to think. He’s sure there’s something to be said about that, something profound that he doesn’t quite have his teeth around, but he gets up like usual, kicks himself off his bed, tries not to step on Raihan again by accident, and makes his way down the stairs.

The family purloin lays on the couch, her nose tucked under her tail. When he was younger she used to lay in the kitchen near the oven, which was always warm, and make a nuisance of herself knocking anything you had out on the counter over and onto the floor. It had only taken one instance with a pack of opened flour for Leon to learn his lesson about negligence. 

She’s getting older, the purple fur around her muzzle mellowing out into purple. Her whiskers twitch as she walks by, and she cracks an eye open and swipes a paw at him. He grins and scratches her behind the ears.

Mom is in the kitchen scaping eggs around the pan with the black spatula that came in the set Dad got her for their anniversary, and he has to check on the herd and their water in these steadily declining temperatures, and then he’ll circle back around and wake Raihan up. 

He’s surprised to find Sonia trekking up the hill, Nessa on her heels.

“You’re here!” He grins. “I mean, you said you would be, I just didn’t think it’d be this early.”

Nessa shifts her backpack higher on her shoulders and rubs at her eyes, ringed with dark circles. “Why the hell do your trains run so early? I got on at three AM.” 

He smiles in sympathy. “There’re a lot of early risers here.”

Sonia included. She’d probably already completed her entire morning routine and run a mile before picking her up at the station.

“I have to go check on the wooloo.” He says. “You guys can come with me if you want.”

“Where’s Raihan?”

“Still asleep.” He replies, and hops over the lowest part of the fence. Nearly a year of being away hadn't even put a dent in what he would describe as a habit. He shakes the rust of his joints and he works just fine, and he isn’t sure how to feel about it. 

The wooloo bleat as he makes sure the well isn’t frozen, rolls the bales of hay out, and checks their coats. They should be getting thicker for the winter, and ready for shearing by the time summer rolls around. It occurs to him that this is the fist Fall he’s going to miss at home.

Sonia leans forward on her elbows, balanced against the fencing, and looks down at the grass.

“You might want to move them soon.” She says. “You don’t want them overgrazing again.”

That had been a bad year. One of the first that they’d been handling the flock on their own. 

“I think we’re moving them to the other pasture next week.” He says. In any case, he’s staying long enough to help out, because he honestly can’t fathom Mom and Hop trying to corral the sea of wooloo into the appropriate space all by themselves, even if Hop technically does have a pokemon now.

Since he’s not licensed, it doesn’t really count. 

He lets his team out, and Sonia and Nessa are quick to follow. Zeus nips at his heels as he runs, sparks flying off his teeth, and the commotion must wake Raihan up because he kicks the door open five minutes later, still looking half asleep, to see what was going on.

So Zeus chases all of them, deprived of a herding source once he’d moved away from the flock and all too eager to reconnect with his roots. 

“He’s so _small.”_ Raihan hisses. “How is he that _fast?”_

“You should see him with the wooloo.” Sonia snorts, and promptly leaps on Nessa’s drednaw’s back before he has a chance to snap at her. “He’s good at his job.”

_“Too_ good.” Raihan grumbles. 

Zeus stiffens, his ears pricking up.

Leon pauses, and looks at Sonia. “Wait, is he-?”

“Last time that happened-”

The wooloo start bleating.

That damn _thieval._

“You’d think it’d learn its lesson.” Sonia remarks, bending down to look at the knocked-out thieval on the ground. Another unsuccessful attempt on its part to get into the hatchery. Unluckily for it, dubwool were no pushovers, especially their dubwool, and they were certainly protective. So protective, in fact, that having to take said eggs should be labelled as an olympic sport. 

“This is what, the third time?” He straightens, amused. “Do you think it made any attempts while we were gone?”

“I mean, probably.”

“This has happened _before?”_ Nessa intervenes. 

“Oh, yeah. Same one, too. See that spot by its ear? Professor Magnolia had him tagged a while ago because she thought he might be sick or something.” Leon shakes his head. “He wasn't; just a chronic case of stupidity.” 

Raihan snorts.

“I’ll go tell Mom.”

“Alright.” Sonia sighs. “Zephyr can airlift him out of here.”

The call comes later that day. Leon has been anticipating it for about an hour.

“Ah, I’ll be right back.” He says, when his pokegear beeps, leaving his glass of in-season cider at the table. 

“Huh?” Nessa leans back. The plastic, obnoxiously red table cloth crinkles as she moves. “Where’re you going?”

“I have to take this call.”

“Oh, sponsorships?” She crinkles her nose. “Every five minutes I have someone calling me - I’ve got to sign with someone who can filter them for me.”

“Oh yeah.” Sonia taps a manicured nail against the ceramic of her mug. A smiling gourgeist decorates the front. “Weren’t you considering signing with that modelling agency?”

“It’d definitely help with my exposure-”

Leon is mildly intrigued by that, but this call takes precedence. 

“Be right back,” He says, and jogs up the stairs.

Sponsorships are more about paperwork than he normally would’ve assumed. There are signatures involved, personal information detailed, and descriptions of his team. 

_How would you describe your battling style? Which pokemon would you consider your ace? Are you signed with any other marketing agencies?_

There’s really too much to consider. Each agency has its specific brand, and Rose keeps sending him paperwork and new opportunities to consider. He only starts reading the fine print when he catches team modifications at the corner of the page. His stomach turns, and he crumples that application up. 

Then there’s the details about the pokemon themselves, and when he’s asked to list his team, he… hesitates. There are several options for what type of team he has; whether he has one main team or several, who gets rotated out most often and why, stats and movesets and abilities and items held, competitive battle strategies and charts full of type weaknesses to show just where his team is lacking. It’s made to point out holes in battle strategies, he knows, but it feels strangely pointed and entirely too focused on certain teams. Dragon types are always marketable, especially with Iris taking the Unova championship after completing the Elite Four challenge with a monotype team. Hulking physical attackers like rampardos and garchomp are preferred over tanks like blissey. Trainers who start with the standard Galarian stater trio are more likely to be rated higher in popularity polls, rock, ghost, and dark types, with a few exceptions, are generally unilaterally disliked.

Vesta gives him an edge, but he doesn’t exactly like that it’s because she’s considered ‘exotic’. Eris is the same; her type is rare enough, and considered ‘cute’ enough, that she’s well liked at all. Haxorus are a staple of dragon-type teams, and drakloak are rare and revered enough to score well, too. The rest of his team, though…

Well, he’s worried someone is going to ask him to shuffle them. 

He writes them all down anyways, and worries his bottom lip between his teeth.

“Dusknoir are… a bit of a PR nightmare.” Rose exclaims with a flourish of his hands that makes Leon want to agree. “Sinnoh likes them well enough, considering its part of their national dex, but dusknoir have a bit of a… bad reputation, around the rest of the world.”

“... I understand.” Leon says after a minute, lowly.

“You can probably get away with using it for the rest of your challenge. The public is invested enough in your image as a whole that they’ll probably forgive it. And you have two dragon types, so that helps, too. Most of these technical things happen after the championship is won.”

Leon blanches. “There’s _more_ of this?”

Rose laughs. Leon tries not to feel too embarrassed. “Well, you didn’t think the championship was just an empty title, did you?”

“Of course not.” He says. 

He’s been briefed on this in school before. The championship is more of a sport now than anything else, but there are social obligations that follow - there are social obligations that follow in any position, gym leader or championship or anything. Nowadays, the champion is very much a social figure, but their position absolutely holds water. Like any gym leader, they’re expected to contribute in times of need. 

“There’s quite a bit to cover.” He waves his hand. “But we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it. For now, finish that paperwork figure out your team arrangement for the first round of the semifinals.”

Professor Magnolia’s research facility is just like he remembers it.

This part of the terrarium is uncomfortably humid, lush with broad ferns and soft soil, perfect for the Venusaur stomping around the area, vines securing the butterfree and orbeetle perched on its back. Outside, the blastoise that Magnolia is testing is sunbathing on the rocky riverside. Vesta’s breeding pair is in here somewhere, too, but Leon can’t see them. 

“Wow.” Raihan whistles. “This is some high tech stuff.”

“It’s league funded.” Sonia puffs up like a proud corviknight. “So it makes sense that this is one of the most advanced places in the region.”

They have an offsite lab for testing, of course, one that isn’t so close to civilian towns just in case of accidents, which were frequent when dealing with the gigantamax phenomenon. 

Magnolia hobbles in after them. Her cane is modelled after her partner Corviknight, who’s probably older than the research lab itself. 

“Now,” She says. “I’ve taken some notes based on what I’ve seen in your matches, but I’d like to see it for myself, if you wouldn’t mind.”

“Sure!” 

She’s kind of the reason he’s doing this anyways, so he’s more than happy to oblige.

Blastoise and Venusaur greet Vesta like an old friend before Magnolia ushers them away for a demonstration.

That night, they sit in the lobby near the bookshelf. It’s dark and Mom will expect them home soon, but he doesn’t want to move. Sonia is trying very hard not to startle Nessa, asleep on her shoulder. Raihan sits on the floor, propped up against the side of his leg, tapping away at the newest string of pictures on his feed. 

“You talked to the professor, right?”

Secrets are more easily shared beneath the ambiguity of night.

“Yeah.” Sonia says, blowing her bangs out of her face. “She took it… better than I expected. I mean, she asked me what I want to do instead, and, I dunno. I’ve got time to figure it out, y’know? I think she was mostly upset that I couldn’t collect more dynamax data. I mean, I can still fight, so that doesn't really matter. She supports my decision, so it’s all good.”

“That’s good.”

He traces loops in the condensation on the window. Raihan taps his leg. “Hey, you seemed kinda stressed earlier, when you had those calls. What was that all about?”

“Just sponsorships.” Leon tries not to bounce his leg, a nervous habit he’s been trying to iron out of himself. It’s probably unseemly. That seems like something Rose would say. He always has something to improve upon in his etiquette, after all. “It’s not a big deal.”

“Mm.” Raihan squints, but it’s hard to tell what expression he’s making next to the bright light of the screen. But whatever he’s thinking about, he must think better of it, because he accepts that for what it is. “If you say so. By the way, Tiamat was shedding earlier. He’s definitely gonna evolve soon.”

“That was quick.”

“Maturity with dragons is weird.” He replies. He glances at Sonia, poking Nessa’s shoulder slightly. “Your Mom probably wants us home, right?”

“Yeah, probably.” He groans, and stretches. “Sonia, we’re gonna head back. See you tomorrow.”

The schoolyard is the same beat down square of hot asphalt as he remembers it. During the summer, under the direct glare of the sun, it got hot enough to melt the rubber soles of your sneakers off. The hastily done white paint outlining the kickball square is fading and the edges are coming up, sheltered by the chain link fence that you occasionally got dared to climb. 

Bailey’s the same schoolyard bully, and Leon finds it strange because he’s supposed to be related to Rose, carefully charismatic and never too confrontational, and now he’s got a looming conkeldurr that leers over his shoulder. Leon eyes it carefully. It probably knows stone edge. They always do.

Hop sprints down the path next to them, trying to keep up with their stride. Dolly the wooloo gallops after him, and he grabs at her sides to try and slow her down before she crashes into the squat, tiny school building that Leon used to think was huge, even when wanderlust was a supernova in his throat.

“This place looks… exactly the same.” Sonia remarks.

“Even your school is small.” Raihan says.

Leon shrugs. “Our class was like… five people.”

He glances at the couple of kids loitering around the school building, probably wanting them to regale them with their tales of life outside Postwick. There are a few that are Hop’s age, most notably that kid next door that he’s never met before. He hopes Hop is doing fine at school, and he hopes Bailey isn’t antagonizing him, and he feels bad that he isn’t here to make sure of that himself.

But, that’s besides the point.

Bailey has his arms crossed, and Leon finds it strange that he ever found him intimidating. Distantly so, a looming reminder of his ill-fitting presence here, in this middle-of-nowhere town with its middle-of-nowhere people, something that Leon knows that he will never outgrow, and feeling, all the same, that he’s the better for that. But it seems the petty bully has stagnated in an old rehearsed roll.

Raihan jabs him in the shoulder with an elbow. “Why’s that kid looking at you funny?”

“Leon got Rose’s letter of endorsement and he didn’t.” Sonia whispers loudly. “Even though he’s his uncle.”

Leon feels a little bad about that, too, but shakes it off. That expression doesn’t spell anything good for them.

Bailey is still a head taller than him, with broad shoulders from working on the farm. “You two brought friends.” He sneers. “You haven’t been back in a while. You too good for Postwick?”

Leon knows better to rise to the bait. Hop, however, bristles and jumps to his defense. He probably should’ve expected that, but it still catches him off guard. 

“You’re just mad because Rose chose him!”

“My conkeldurr would eat your little wooloo alive.” He snaps.

Leon is very, very grateful, in that moment, that conkeldurr aren’t carnivores. 

“Lee could beat you in a fight!”

“Hop-”

“I’m not looking for a fight.” He turns sharply towards his own friend circle. They might’ve had some mutual ones before, but none of them so much as look their way. 

Leon plops a hand on Hop’s head. “Stay away from people like him, okay?”

“Lee!” Hop shakes Leon awake. He most’ve dozed off on the couch again.

“Huh?” He slurs, rubbing his eyes.

“There’s a weird light outside.”

“Mm.” He stands up and stumbles over to the window. There is, indeed, a strange purple light floating outside. Weird.

“What’re you doing?” Raihan is cocooned in his sleeping bag like a metamorphosing caterpie. 

“Weird light outside.”

“What? Oh, that is weird. You wanna go check it out? I’ll wake up Sonia and Nessa.”

“Yeah, sure.”

“It’s cold out here.” Sonia complains, rubbing her arms. “I don’t even see anything.”

Leon lets Vesta out, if only because she functions like a living space heater. 

“I don’t know where it went-”

It flickers near the latched gate of the Weald. Sonia digs her heels in, “Oh, not this bullshit again. That’s the last place I want to be at midnight.”

“We don’t know that it went in.” Leon offers, waving his flashlight through the tall grass. It’s probably a ghost type playing tricks. It’s almost customary, this time of year. “It’s probably just a ghost type, anyways. I can get Eris out-”

The mist outside the forest shifts.

“No, no.” Sonia says. “I went in there once and I got fucked up for a week. Grandma will never let me hear the end of it.”

Leon shrugs. “We all have pretty high level pokemon, I don’t really think there’s anything in there that can hurt us.”

Vesta roared, as if adding her piece. He stokes her neck. “Yeah, you’re not afraid of some ghastly.”

“It looked too bright to be a ghastly.” Nessa points out. “But it definitely had that look- oh, hell.”

The mist moves and dances in the dim light. Leon grips his flashlight a little tighter, and ventures a step closer. If there’s a ghost type out here, it might have seen his own ghost types and become intrigued by them. 

“Hello?”

The mist takes a shape. The jaw of a canine, broad fangs and sharp, pricked ears, the coarse main of the creature said to be buried deep within the forest. The lock on the gate becomes unlatched and it swings open with a long creek.

But whatever the thing it might be, it isn’t ready for Vesta.

At times like this, it’s hard to forget her as a charmeleon, ready to jump into a lake to fight a gyrados for nothing but honor’s sake. 

The flames overtake the mist, the heat blowing it back away towards the forest, and the air twists and brightens enough for them to see the thing that created it:

A solosis.

“Well.” Sonia says. “I was expecting something more…”

“Intimidating?” Nessa offers.

“That’s the word.”

The solosis squeaks and runs away, and Vesta huffs, proud of herself. 

“Do solosis even live around here?”

“No.” Sonia scoffs. “This was definitely a prank.”

Leon grins. “Well, in that case, I have four ghost types more than willing to return the favor.”

(They don’t get very far in their planning. Tiamat is a punishment in and of himself, and when he accidentally knocks the fence around the school down, he somehow escapes blame and the nearest group of kids gets blamed. If one of them has a solosis, well, Leon will never know). 

Sonia flicks listless through the TV channels. Most are stale reruns of fights that Leon has memorized by this point. There are a couple of old movies playing now, too, and Nessa and Raihan are arguing over whether they should watch _A Thousand Arms_ or _The Star Over Valor_ , and both seem equally as bad. She pauses on a news channel reporting another case of trafficking near Spikemuth, but as far as he can tell, no one actually knows what’s going on regarding that. 

Then Raihan gets a call.

“Uh huh.” He says. “Yeah, I can do that.”

“What’s going on?” Nessa leans forward.

“I’ve gotta run back to hammerlocke. Apparently my Dad’s being terrorized by a very angry duraldulon.”

What a way to start the morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Does this count as the Halloween episode?
> 
> Anyways I'm so sorry this took so long. I was feeling kinda burned out and I needed a break, but I'm back now and updates should be getting back to usual!
> 
> The illusion thing was partly inspired by the Halloween decorations in my house and partly by PSMD


	15. Chapter 15

Hammerlocke isn’t so pretty when plagued with a rampaging duraludon.

Leon isn’t even sure where it came from, because he’s fairly certain that none of them are native to the city or any of its surrounding territories, and last time he was at the conservatory, there weren’t any to speak of. Raihan would’ve gushed about it if there were one, obviously. 

“Raihan!” He yells over the wind. “Where’d that thing come from?”

“I don’t know!” His flygon drops into a fast descent, and Vesta is quick behind them.

The asphalt under its armored foot cracks, and Leon yelps.

“Vesta, move!”

Pointed stones erupt from the sidewalk and street, very nearly impaling them.

“I’ve got it!” Raihan shouts, and Flygon fires a dragon pulse, countered by duraludon’s own. 

“Is everyone out?” He cranes his neck to look at the empty streets. Even if it hadn't, everyone had had the common sense to get out of the way. 

“I don’t see anyone.” Nessa offers. “We can look.”

Sonia, though, frowns. “Stone edge - don’t duraludon only learn that move through TM?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t swallow an encyclopedia.”

She flushes. “I’m _saying_ it probably belongs to someone!”

Nessa’s expression darkens. “Well they’re doing a shit job at being an owner, then. How the hell do you lose a _dragon_ in a _crowded street?”_

“I want to take a closer look.”

Zephyr, evidently, did not.

“We should be backing up Raihan anyways.” Leon says, and taps Vesta’s shoulder. She gets it immediately, dropping down into the street. Raihan, crouched low to Flygon’s back, ducks beneath a dragon pulse attack. 

“Raihan!”

He looks up, startled, and then nods.

“Vesta!”

Smoke pours from her jaws, drifting around the duraludon. The metallic glint of a stray flash cannon smashes into the nearest apartment building. 

“We found the rangers!” Nessa yells from above. Leon seriously doubts that any of them are equipped to deal with high-level pokemon attacks like this. 

The earth splits and shakes beneath them, and Vesta flies higher as the earthquake reaches its peak. 

“Did you get it-?”

His question is answered as a stray dragon pulse hits Flygon point blank in the chest, throwing Raihan off its back. Panic sparks in his chest and shoots up his throat.

“Vesta!”

She’s already moving, swooping beneath him so she can grab him, and Leon hauls him onto her back. The bubble of panic pops. “Gotcha.”

“Finish it off, dragon claw!”

Flygon advances with elongated claws, bathed in bright blue, and fells the duraludon finally.

Raihan sighs and slumps into his side. “Arceus.”

Vesta deposits them gently on the ground and Raihan immediately makes a beeline for the pokemon, already readying the ultra ball by his side. The ranges swarming from the other sects (just two, probably called from the wild area and more concerned with keeping the residents safe than challenging the rampaging pokemon) spill into the street. Sonia and Nessa slide onto the uprooted pavement next to them. 

“Ah, shit.” Nessa says. “This is gonna get on TV, isn’t it?”

They last about five minutes under the ranger’s interrogation: _no_ the Duraludon isn’t one of theirs, _no_ they don’t know where it came from, _no_ they didn’t see anyone suspicious who might be its owner - before Raihan’s father runs out into the scene.

“I’ll take care of this.” He promises, turning to the rangers.

Leon holds out his hand for Raihan, and pulls him up.

Sonia stares at their interlocked hands for a moment. “Guys?”

He blinks, and immediately lets go. 

“Kids!” Raihan’s father calls. “We’re all cleared up here!”

“Odd.” The computer’s artificial light reflects off his glasses. “This duraludon can Gigantimax.”

“Woah, really?” Raihan spins around on his stool, much to Nessa’s chagrin. She kicks out a foot to try and stop him. “Can I keep it?”

“You _did_ catch it…” He agrees. “But to think that one of these just stumbled into city limits is… absurd. The chance of naturally coming across a pokemon with gigantimax potential is infinitesimally small. Not impossible, I suppose, but… unlikely.” He clicks, and his smile thins. “Mm, like I thought… it’s chipped.”

“So it _did_ belong to someone.” Sonia says. “It knew stone edge, so someone had to have taught it that, right?”

“Well, it was definitely raised to battle. I’d like to run a few more tests before you go, though. Just to make sure it’s alright. I’d like to know who left it in the middle of the road, too.”

It wasn’t unheard of to abandon smaller, weaker pokemon in the cities, under the assumption that they were less likely to die than they were in the wild, where there were plenty of people around to throw them scraps, and a distinct lack of apex predators, but to abandon a _duraludon, an already rare pokemon to come by?_ And one clearly intended for battling? One that could _gigantamax?_ No way, absolutely not. 

Leon had good instincts, and everything about this situation was setting off alarm bells in his head.

“Well.” He pushes away from the computer. “I’m sure the rangers can handle it. As far as I can tell, he’s perfectly fine and ready to go. Ah, be careful when you let him out - he might be a little disorientated, what with all of this mess.”

“Thanks, Dad.” Raihan grins, grabbing the ball. “Man, this would be cool if it weren’t so weird.” 

“Are you sure you can’t trace its owner or anything?” Sonia pipes up. “I mean - if it wasn’t abandoned there must be someone out there who wants it back, right? Er, I guess Raihan was able to catch it, so I don’t know…”

“It didn’t have a trainer ID attached, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

Nessa scuffs the heel of her sneaker on the ground. “Any trainer who loses a duraludon in the middle of a crowded street probably shouldn’t get it back.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

Leon’s phone beeps. He flinches so hard he knocks the tray off the table, scattering the treats on the grass. Raihan inhales sharply, and Sonia yelps. Nessa pinches the bridge of her nose and exhales deeply.

“Sorry!” He squeaks. “Sorry, I forgot I had a meeting scheduled, my bad, I’m just gonna-”

He slides off the stool, carefully avoiding the food he scattered, and retreated to the hallway. Meetings would be so much easier when he was actually in Wyndon and didn’t have to worry about virtual ones.

“Chairman Rose.”

“Ah, Leon.” Rose greets, sitting against a backdrop of tasteful white curtains billowing in the wind. He must have changed the bay window setup. 

“I’m sorry I was late. There was an… incident-”

“Oh, I’ve seen it. The news outlets have already gotten their hands on it. It’s just the nature of these things. Oh, don’t worry, nothing that cites you or your friends directly, of course. But there are some rumors about a charizard circulating, and you know how rare those are in our region.”

“I-”

“Good job, subduing the… duraludon, was it?”

“Yeah, uh.” His mouth tastes like cotton. “Raihan caught it, not me.”

“Well, that’s too bad. It would’ve made a nice addition to your team - though, as your rival, both your images might benefit from it…”

“Sir?”

Rose rests his chin on steepled fingers. “Now, this is an instance of good publicity. In this case, you’re more likely to benefit from exposure. But,” His tone becomes colder. “I implore you to tread carefully when it comes to this kind of incident. You’re cultivating a very specific public image, and the last thing you want to do is put that in jeopardy. Think carefully about how you conduct yourself, and when you decide to interfere. Your actions represent the league, after all.”

“Of course, sir.”

“And Leon? 

“Do be careful what you involve yourself in.”

“I will.”

The rest of the conversation unfolds delicately, sidestepping the issue as Rose brushes it off with an easy smile and an airy laugh. His photos are done and his league card is being updated and apparently Vesta is generating merchandise on the market, and he’s not quite sure how to feel about that. Vesta herself was more likely to burn a stuffed animal to a crisp than appreciate the sentiment. Then again, Vesta was more likely to bun anything to a crisp than acknowledge its value.

Rose leaves gracefully, with a graceful wave, while Leon struggles for traction in the conversation. The screen goes black.

“-bye.” He mutters lamely.

Raihan stays in Motostoke with his parents, both to pack for the approaching trip to Wyndon through the ever miserable Route 10 and to help the recent addition to his team get acclimated. 

That night, Leon lays on his bed, staring up at the ceiling, kicking his leg idly. Sonia is wrapped up in his quilt on the ground, her finger scratching over the lovingly-stitched wooloo square. 

“Hey, Leon?”

“Yeah?”

“You and Raihan…”

“What about us?”

“You know what, nevermind.”

Leon squints up at his ceiling. “What’s _that_ mean?”

“I just said it doesn’t mean anything.” She throws her pillow at him. He throws his pillow back. Somehow neither of them notice Zeus attempting to scale his bookshelf. They end up watching a cheesy action movie to point out all its inaccuracies, and to prepare them a bit for the train ride tomorrow, and all in all, the night is good.

Mom bundles him in no less than three scarves, and her attempts to sneakily shove a third one into his already top-heavy bag are not unnoticed, nor are they appreciated.

“Mom.” He says. “We’re nowhere near Wyndon.”

“It’s cold up there.” She replies, disapproving. Hop giggles at his misery. “Last year it got as cold as Mount Coronet, and you expect me to send you there without the proper gear?”

“Mom, I’ve been to Circhester-”

“Hypothermia is a real threat, Leon. You don’t want to get sick before your match-”

He stands on his tip toes, attempting to block her view of the closet and its selection of heavy winter clothing. He’s going to miss his train at this rate. 

“Mom, _mom!_ I’m gonna be okay!”

She sets her hands on her hips and then sighs. “I know.”

“And I’m not gonna catch hypothermia or anything, I promise. Vesta is literally a living gas heater.” 

“I know, I know.” She smiles, and the lines around her mouth deepen. “And I trust you. So I’m going to let you go now, so you don’t miss your train. Hop, wish your brother good luck!”

Hop latches onto his leg like an overenthusiastic aipom. “You better win!”

He reaches down with a gloved hand to ruffle Hop’s hair. “Of course I will! I’ll bring home the champion cup, you got it?”

“Yeah!” He throws his hands in the air.

He waves goodbye and walks out the door onto the new patio steps that they still aren’t technically supposed to walk on. Seeing them there is never going to stop being weird.

Sonia takes one look at him and raises an eyebrow.

He groans. “Don’t say anything.”

She grins. “I wasn’t going to!”

The train station is saturated with people looking to catch pictures of the participants. This particular train is scheduled specifically to cater to the needs of the challengers, and served as the only transportation to the city. There were trains that went all the way to Wyndon, but they were expensive, and it was tradition for challengers to complete the last leg of their journey by travelling through Route 10.

These tracks were seldom used, because very rarely did anyone other than a challenger intend to brave the harsh conditions of Route 10.

Sonia puts her hand on his shoulder and stands on her toes to see over the crowd. He recognizes some notable challengers among them; the girl with the drapion, for one, and the kid with the tyranitar. But no sign of Nessa or Raihan.

“I should be able to see Raihan.” She grumbles. “He towers over everybody else.”

“Maybe they’re late? Or maybe they already boarded?”

She huffs and rocks back on her heels, before fishing her ticket out of her pocket. 

The whistle blows, and the lines begin to feed into the train.

It takes an elbow to the ribs well-placed enough that Leon thinks it had to be intentional to finally get onto the train, but once in, it was fairly peaceful. Sonia brought cards to play as she unsubtly looked for Nessa and Raihan. Leon could tell she wasn’t paying attention because he got her twice and that never happened.

“I’m doing this for moral support.” She informs him. 

“Uh-huh.” He replies.

“And not for any other reason.”

“... uh-huh.”

“Leon?”

“Yeah?”

She leans back against the upholstery. “What if I’m overreacting? About this whole battling thing. Maybe I should. I mean, it’s good financially, right? And I definitely don’t hate it or anything, so I could make it work. I know I already withdrew from the competition and everything, but maybe seeing the battles would make it easier?”

“Sonia, you’ve been battling yourself for the past year, and if you didn’t like that why do you think this would be better?”

She squirms. “I just… maybe I should just do it anyways. Like, I could be happy doing it.”

“Are you happy doing it now?” 

She grimaces.

“Well, I-”

“There’s your answer. If it isn’t yes, then don’t do it. There’re other things you can do.”

“Like become a wooloo farmer?” She grins.

“Exactly like that.”

She huffs a laugh. “Thanks. Nessa gave me her number. She’s sent me nothing but pictures of her drednaw and I think this is the happiest I’ve ever been.”

The train screeches to a halt, and their destination announced.

Time to go. 

Route 10 is, unsurprisingly, cold as all _hell._

Even Circhester wasn’t this cold, with the warmth of its hot springs and the warmth of its inhabitants driving away most of the bone-deep cold. No, this cold is spiteful. This cold is the bared fangs of sneasel who will not leave them alone and the increasingly disheartening acknowledgement that maybe Mom had been right. 

“Arceus.” Sonia shivers. He can practically hear her teeth chattering as she exhales steam into the air. “I think Zeus is trying to eat that sneasel.”

“He’s keeping them away from us.”

“I don’t know how he isn’t cold…”

Vesta lumbers behind them, attempting to drive some of the cold away, but she can’t take the intense cold too long without overheating herself, because either the ice starts to creep over the tips of her wings or the heat it takes to burn it off becomes overbearing. She clearly isn’t a fan of the snow, melting puddles around her claws, or the persistent hail. He might laugh at her affronted expression, at the audacity of the storm, but he was too cold to do it.

A man with a corviknight, somehow not frozen (there was a reason the taxis didn’t ferry people out into this ice-hell) challenges them to a battle. Sonia is so mad about it she practically launches Zeus at him and watches him beg for mercy.

She sniffles, wiping at her nose with her hand. “If one more person asks me to battle I swear.” 

Three cubchoo chase each other through the frost-studded grass, hardy enough to survive in the subzero temperatures. 

Sonia coos until the beartic ventures a little too close. Vesta snarls until it goes away.

Leon pats her side, and her internal heat brings back some of the feeling in his numb fingers. His toes are probably a lost cause.

“I’m never going outside again.” Sonia says, miserable, and trudges up the hill. Vesta spits fire in the next person who tries to challenge them.

“How tall is this fucking hill?”

“I think we’re almost there-”

“There!”

The hill crests, and they overlook the city of Wyndon. 

It seems just as grand as it had in his imagination, all towering prestige and novelty. Over the top, carnival-esque attractions and bright blinking lights all contributed to its mystique. High profile boutiques and restaurants and shopping malls around every corner, and all the strongest trainers in the region were going to be meeting there.

“Race you.” Sonia grins, and starts towards the gate.

“Hey!” He yells, running after her. Vesta roars and takes to the air, and he laughs all the way to the entrance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just got Crown Tundra, played through the entire thing, it fucked up my worldbuilding, it's fine (I also just got the aisle of armor I know I'm like a year late but I'm just keeping in character guys). I'm trying to figure out who was champion when. Peony left after Rose became chairman so obviously he can't be champion now, I guess it'll just have to be some guy?? As for the aisle and the crown tundra themselves I probably won't dedicate that much time to them but I do plan to at least acknowledge that Leon went to train on them. Very slight plot modifications
> 
> speaking of plot, it's kicking up ;)


	16. Chapter 16

Wyndon is often revered as the capital of the Galar region, and it certainly lives up to its name. Rookidee that are probably at the very least feral perch on the sharp stone wings of the corviknight statue, wings unfurled in like towering thunderclouds above its head. 

Apartment buildings sat in the distance, while the more flashy attractions, like the theme park with its high-reaching ferris wheel and soaring roller coasters, or the brightly colored stadium that he would be fighting in soon. Every street was crammed with designer boutiques and expensive restaurants and hair salons. The train station offered the monorail’s services at thirty minute intervals. 

“It’s even bigger than Hammerlocke.” He awes. 

“We gotta find the hotel.” Sonia tugs at the scarf around her neck, unlocking her phone to try and find the GPS. 

Even with all the time he’s spent in Hammerlocke and Motostoke, cities still manage to be awe-inspiring in an intimidating sort of way. The constant ambient sound of car horns and chatter and hooves and wheels is more comforting than it is distracting, and the flashing faces and brand names on the billboards are bright and pretty and just as eye catching as they’re intended to be. 

“Do you have your lineup?” She asks as they walk. 

The shop window next to them displays the newest seasonal clothes. Sonia eyes them thoughtfully. “Nessa would like that.” She says after a second, before turning back to her phone. “So?”

“I mean - yeah, I guess.” He rests his hand at the nape of his neck. “It’s hard to plan when you don’t know what opponent you’re facing.”

“Oh, yeah.” She elbows him in the rib. “You and Raihan could end up fighting each other first, couldn’t you?”

He makes a face. “Ugh. I don’t think so. The Chairman said that they arranged all the contestants into groups based on the odds that they win so that they get the best match out of the finals. He said Raihan and I are pretty well known, so we shouldn’t be fighting until the end.”

“That’s kinda weird.” She scrunches up her nose. “That they rig it like that.”

Leon shrugs. “It’s all about the spectacle. They want to best fights to go last so everyone will stick around. You don’t want your two strongest participants fighting first, because then everything after will be pretty underwhelming.”

“What, you think you and Raihan are the strongest?” She grins. “Kinda arrogant of you, huh?”

He flushes. The cold has already bitten his cheeks red but he feels the blood rushing to his face. “I meant that hypothetically.” 

“Sure you did.” She turns abruptly, cutting off the flow of people. Some of them give her dirty looks. Others stare a little too long, which makes him think they’ve been recognized, but most part around them easily with all of the steady confidence of a river flowing around a rock. “I think it’s actually this way - no-” She pulls a hand through her hair. “I think your shitty sense of direction rubbed off on me.”

He grins apologetically. “Sorry.”

If this were any other place, they could probably get away with getting an aerial view on Vesta’s back, but Wyndon, unfortunately, has very strict rules about air travel. It can disrupt the corviknight taxi traffic. He can’t imagine what must’ve happened to necessitate that rule, but it probably wasn’t anything good.

“Yeah, yeah. Let’s just keep following this street. We’ve gotta find it eventually.”

That seemed good enough for him, so he shrugs and follows her down the street.

They eventually find the hotel thirty minutes after they were supposed to arrive. 

Leon stands in the lobby, just appreciating the heat, for a good five minutes before Sonia gets tired of him and drags him up to their room after procuring the key from the receptionist. 

“What time does your schedule say to be there?” She asks, retying her windswept hair. His is probably no better. He runs his fingers through it, snagging on a particularly egregious snarl behind his ear. 

“I think I have to be there by three?”

“Where’s your schedule?”

She reaches across her bed to grab his bag, sat between them, and digs his schedule out of his backpack, smoothing out the crinkles.

“You should probably take better care of this.”

He shrugs. “What? It’s fine.”

She rolls her eyes. “Yeah, okay, it starts at three, so we should probably get down there soon.”

“Yeah, okay.” He groans, rolling out of bed, and grabs his bag before trudging to the bathroom.

“You all good?” Sonia calls from the lobby. She rests her head on her palm and glances at her watch. “We should get going soon.”

He slips the last of his potions into his bag and settles it back over his shoulders. Eris’ pokeball hangs at his side, ready to lead with. 

“Alright.” She loops her hand with his. “To the stadium!”

Up close, Wyndon stadium is even more grandiose than it was from a distance. The solar panels composing its sides glowed fuschia pink in the sun. 

They swerve around the concession stands, ducking beneath the shelves of merchandise being advertised and the bags of rainbow cotton candy and caramel popcorn. It’s loud enough that it’s hard to hear Sonia talking to him, despite her being so close. The crowd moves as one living, breathing being. Someone points at them and yells something, and the guards at the entrance usher them through the front doors before anyone notices who they are. 

The lobby isn’t any less crowded. Red ropes section off people into long lines, but challengers are put immediately at the front desk. 

“This is as far as I go.” Sonia pats his shoulder. “Just follow the nice assistant, okay? Don’t get lost.”

“I won’t, I won’t.” He rolls his eyes. 

The receptionist paws through his paperwork, his license, his badges, and the paperwork for Vesta, pausing at the species name like they usually do before verifying that she is in fact a legal pokemon, before nodding him forward and pushing him towards the locker rooms.

The man in the waiting room informs him that his match isn’t for another thirty minutes, allowing time for the first match to play out.

The screen above the door shows a view of the pitch. A rhydon and hippowdon stare each other down, and as soon as the barrier around the crowd is established, the referee throws his hand down and the sharp blare of the whistle signals the battle to start.

He lets Eris walk around (much to the chagrin of the aid, who watches her distrustfully as she sits on top of the bench. 

He imagines Sonia is somewhere out in the crowd, waiting. 

The first match ends with the hippowdon’s trainer. She jumps up, pumping a fist in the air, before rushing onto the field to hug her pokemon. He’s up next.

“Ready?” He asks Eris, who does her best imitation of a nod. 

“Challenger Leon.” The aid says. “Your match is up. Proceed whenever you’re ready.”

He gathers himself, Eris climbs up onto his shoulder, and he makes his way onto the pitch.

Electric anticipation hums at the base of his spine and crackles in the pit of his stomach.

The camera crew at the sidelines is taking pictures and video feed. Eris turns and waves a ghostly hand at them.

“And here comes the second battle, folks!”

The announcer’s voice is loud and energetic, coaxing the crowd’s infectious excitement. Background music blares over the speakers and on the big screen at the front of the stadium, he can see both him and his opponent approaching the field. 

It’s always intimidating, but the heat of the battle always melts it away. The electric, anticipatory fear is nearly euphoric. 

“Ready!”

He snaps back to reality. His opponent flashes him a sharp-toothed grin across the field that reminds him of Raihan, except Raihan was much more of a threat. The crowd sits on the edges of their seats, ready for the it to begin.

“The match may begin!”

The fight passes in a blur of heat and light. Disguise takes the brunt of the first attack and lures the linoone close enough to grab it, and play rough ends that soon enough. Tiamat handles the next two pokemon by dropping in and out of existence, phantom force allowing him to hide in shadows and strike when the opponent wasn’t looking.

He heads back to the locker room, breathless, and waits for his next match.

There are twelve fights before his next one.

Nessa comes up at one point, swamping the field with her drednaw. She must’ve picked up something from Raihan, because the both of them are now more than willing to drench the audience if necessary. She comes out of it with two leads and the crowd cheering at her back. 

A few other trainers mill about in the waiting room, all sharing in the atmosphere of anticipatory static. It buzzes beneath his fingers and up his spine like he swallowed lightning.

Raihan is up, then, and like Nessa, obliterates his opponent. The wrath of his new duraludon is wholly unmatched, and Leon itches to fight it for real. 

The landslide victory prompts an uproar from the crowd, and before he knows it he’s up again, and again. 

The two matches pass in a blur. Eris’ decoy always takes the brunt of the first hit, which by this point has lost the advantage of surprise, but doesn’t make it any easier to counter. 

He finishes off his last opponent with a roar from the crowd. He ends up back under the cover of the locker room, away from the prying eyes of the crowd and flashing camera lights and eardrum-splitting noise that seems to have found a home in his chest.

_Sonia texts, _are you changed and everything?? I’m waiting outside__

_He glances up at the monitor, but Raihan’s match shouldn’t be for another hour. They can always watch it back at the hotel._

____

___> no, i didn’t >:( _ _ _

___> Im coming_ _ _

__He slips his phone into his pocket and heads for the exit._ _

__(He does get a little lost, but that’s nothing that one of the receptionists can’t fix, and nothing that Sonia needs to know about)._ _

__

__

__Sonia tosses him the remote from her bag. Raihan’s match just died down with another victory from him._ _

__She chews thoughtfully. “At this rate you two are probably gonna end up fighting at the end.”_ _

__“You think?”_ _

__“Yeah.” She glances down at her buzzing phone and takes the spoon out of her mouth. “That’s Nessa. Here, I’ll add you to the chat.”_ _

__“You had a chat without me?”_ _

__She doesn’t dignify that with an answer._ _

__“Did you see the amusement park?” She reads aloud. “Oh, I know that one. It’s open?” She shakes her head. “Of course it is.”_ _

__“Amusement park?” He leans over her shoulder._ _

__“Apparently she wants to go. I think Raihan’s coming with her. You want to come?”_ _

__Leon has never been to an amusement park. Sonia knows this._ _

__“Um, yeah, sure. But don’t we need tickets? They’re gonna be crowded.”_ _

_____ _

____> I know a guy_ _ _ _

___“She knows a guy? What does that mean?”_ _ _

______ _ _

_____> Shut up_ _ _ _ _

_____> Don’t question it_ _ _ _ _

____“Well.” She pockets her phone. “I guess we’re going then.”_ _ _ _

____ _ _

____ _ _

____They meet Raihan and Nessa at the back corner of the park, sanctioned off by a line of gates standing behind the game section. Sonia had somehow coordinated glow in the dark nail polish with Nessa, even though Leon didn’t remember her stopping to buy that at any point, but while Nessa looked dubiously smug about her dubiously legal contact with what he could only assume to be the amusement park mafia, Sonia was all big smiles and excitement, like the fizzing bubbles that ticked the back of his throat._ _ _ _

____“I haven’t been here since I was a kid.” She turns to address him. “It’s better at night.”_ _ _ _

____Raihan blinks and looks at Leon. “Have you never been to an amusement park?”_ _ _ _

____“Well- Wedgehurst had a carnival sometimes, but-” Nothing quite like this._ _ _ _

____Raihan just grins wider. “This is gonna be fun.”_ _ _ _

____Before he can think to question it they’re tugging him through the gates. Nessa and Raihan lean in to argue about ‘the teacups’, which turn out to be actual, huge sinistea-themed tea cups that spin in sharp circles._ _ _ _

____Once they’re all loaded inside, Nessa immediately reaches for the handle in the middle to make them spin even faster and over their own screams and laughter he learns that Raihan is not made for spinning rides, considering he doesn’t relearn how to walk in a straight line for at least five minutes after._ _ _ _

____“Dude.” Nessa laughs as he leans over Leon. “You could’ve just said you didn’t want to ride.”_ _ _ _

____“No way.” He groans. “I’m not a coward.”_ _ _ _

____Leon laughs, like carbonated bubbles rising in his chest._ _ _ _

____In the warm shadows before the setting sun, the colors became more prominent: flashing red, blues, greens, yellows, blinking on and off, everywhere at once. The air is full of watermelon sugar and things fried gold and salt. A concession stand to the left is selling crystallized rock candy in the shape of cursola and cotton candy with the same color pattern as hatterene, and rainbow-swirl lollipops._ _ _ _

____Sonia pulls them towards a booth filled with stuffed toys - a grumpy looking meowth, a rockruff, and a snom among them. Nessa points to a froakie and Sonia immediately takes to the squirt guns to try and win it for her._ _ _ _

____“Hey, there’s a dreepy.”_ _ _ _

____There is in fact a dreepy, and Tiamat would _love_ it._ _ _ _

____“I bet I can win it.” Raihan grins._ _ _ _

____“You’re on.”_ _ _ _

____He probably should’ve known better than to challenge Raihan before he even knew what the game entailed, and sitting on the stool next to him with little more than the premise of the game wasn’t enough to win. He got the hang of it about halfway through, but not before Raihan finished off. It wouldn’t surprise him if Raihan simply didn’t want the toy, considering he fought to win, not for a prize, but as soon as he picked it out and the employee handed it to him, he tossed it in Leon’s lap._ _ _ _

____“Tiamat’ll like this, right?”_ _ _ _

____Leon grins. “Yeah, he will.”_ _ _ _

____Their next destination is the roller coaster: the tallest one in the region, the sign assures them. Themed after Zapdos, a reddish caricature of its likeness painted on the side of the coaster. Raihan grabs his hand and points. “We’re gonna go on that.”_ _ _ _

____“It’s probably the same as flying, right?”_ _ _ _

____Raihan grins. “I guess we’ll see.”_ _ _ _

____ _ _

____ _ _

____He gives Sonia his toy to hold while they load onto the coaster. The attendant snaps the bar over their laps, and the ride rumbles to a start beneath them. It starts its slow climb up the hill, dragged by the track beneath them._ _ _ _

____Leon glances beside him, and Raihan smiles. “You ready?”_ _ _ _

____“Yeah!”_ _ _ _

____The roller coaster reaches the top of the hill, and stalls. Raihan leans forward, looking down into the drop in front of them, and his profile is bathed in golden light. Something crackles like lightning in the pit of his stomach, not quite fear, not quite adrenaline, but before he can put a name to the rapidly evolving feeling, the roller coaster drops down and his stomach flies into his chest._ _ _ _

____Raihan whoops and laughs at the look on his face, undeterred by the speed at which the coaster moves._ _ _ _

____By the time they stop, parked back at the beginning, his hair is windswept and tangled and the wind is knocked right out of him. He laughs breathlessly as Raihan gives him a hand and pulls him to the other side of the track so they can walk down the rickety stairs and meet Sonia and Nessa on the other side of the fun house._ _ _ _

____His legs are still shaky by the time they finally get off. He wonders if this is how Raihan felt after finally getting off the tea cups ride._ _ _ _

____"Where'd they go?" He squints out into the crowd. It's still packed, despite the late hours. It's filled with tourists, most of them here to see the matches, probably. They're lucky it's dark, when it's more difficult to be recognized. Nothing ruins the moment like a crowd of people trying to take pictures of you from the nearest bushes, as if they don't see it. "I don't see them."_ _ _ _

____Leon glances at his phone. "I think Sonia said she wanted to go in the fun house. She said we can meet where we came in after."_ _ _ _

____"We could go on the ferris wheel." Raihan suggests, gesturing to the marvel of moving parts and steel to the left. Leon glances after him, and decides that the wait doesn't seem too long._ _ _ _

____"Sure." He shrugs, and they set off towards it._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____ _ _

____There are very few things that Leon likes more than flying. Being this high in the air is always calming, looking down at the rest of the amusement park, full of distant, blurred light. The air is colder this high up, but he doesn't mind as much as Raihan does._ _ _ _

____"You ready for tomorrow?"_ _ _ _

____"Of course I am." He kicks his legs, and the bench creaks and swings._ _ _ _

____"No hard feelings?"_ _ _ _

____"No hard feelings." He replies confidently. "I'm definitely gonna win, though."_ _ _ _

____"Sure you are." Raihan replies, and Leon grins. The mood is infectious. Quieter, though, dampened from the electric shock it was on the field. This is just... nice._ _ _ _

____The ferris wheel starts moving again, ready to deposit them back on the ground._ _ _ _

____By the time the ride is over, Sonia and Nessa are already waiting impatiently by the gate. They split back into their groups, to return to their separate hotels._ _ _ _

____Tomorrow can't come fast enough._ _ _ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is late dafkdlfsa it's been an interesting week. The shitshow that is US politics, dabi, fucking *destiel*
> 
> Aaaanyways the amusement park thing was entirely self indulgent but I had fun writing it :P
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	17. Chapter 17

Standing in front of the stadium feels monumental; big and bright and ostentatious, something on the wind speaks of change. The feel of it, unfamiliar under his hands, has a thrumming electricity of its own, an ambition still too big for him to comfortably slip under, the cold-prick at the base of his spine and the bottom of his stomach of adrenaline, fear, excitement. It feels like change. 

This is what he’d been after since that day in Postwick, looking over the rolling golden fields of Springtime and wanting _more,_ this is the fever dream he’s been chasing for the past year, the big, unending freedom of want and hope and something else.

“You ready?” Sonia asks.

“Yes.” He says, a knee-jerk instinct. He pauses. “No. I don't know.”

She pats his shoulder. “I think you’re ready. You didn’t come all this way to get cold feet, did you?”

“I don’t have cold feet-” He starts indignantly, but she shoves him forward towards the employee, waiting impatiently for him to walk towards the roped-off section reserved for competitors. 

“Good luck!” Sonia waves, as the crowd surges up and around her. “Kick ass!”

Leon laughs under his breath.

“I will!”

The silence is a little more daunting, alone. The calm before the storm, the tide washing out before the tsunami hits, and Leon is following the water.

He taps his foot and rolls Vesta’s ball across the bench, and watches the screen as it displays the matchup. Raihan is battling Nessa, and next he’ll be battling Piers. And then Raihan. Because he’s going to win. 

The fight ends with Raihan’s Duraludon standing as Nessa’s drednaw collapses into the dirt. The crowd cheers wildly.

“You’re up next.” The assistant informs him. 

He gets up off the bench, and walks towards the exit.

Leon hands his team over to the on-call nurse for healing and bounces on his toes. Now it’s just him and Raihan, now it’s just the magnetic pull of rivalry he’s been feeling ever since their first battle, when Vesta was still a charmeleon and flygon was still a trapinch. Somehow, Raihan has always felt like an inevitability. A gravitational pull, like two planets orbiting each other. He wouldn’t have it either other way.

He has an hour break to relax, to stretch his legs and go over his strategy in his head. 

Tiamat drifts around the vending machine, plunging his ghostly tail through the glass and trying to figure out how to get a pack of sour gummies out without having to actually use the machine.

He laughs, breaking up the tension in the room. “I can just pay for that-”

But he will not be deterred. 

Eris sits on his lap and hops around the bench, scavenging for crumbs and talismans left behind by other competitors and hums, low-pitched and soothing. 

He pulls his legs up onto the bench with him. “We can do this.”

Asha snuffles, and bumps his head, careful of her tusks.

He nods, more confident. “We can do this.”

“Number 716?”

He glances up at the League Staff, head partway through the open door. “The Chairman’s speech is just about finished, we’re ready for you on the pitch.”

“Okay.” He returns his team to their balls and slides off the bench.

Leon walks out into the field to catch the tail end of the Chairman’s speech. He hadn't appreciated it before, the finesse with which he controlled the crowd. A naturally charismatic speaker, he didn’t flinch beneath the constant scrutiny of the crowd’s hungry gaze or stumble over his words. He talked like he was greeting an old friend, comfortable and warm and inviting, and the crowd responded to his careful touch with correctly placed oohs and ahs. 

This crowd is like no other he’s ever seen. There are cameras focused on him at every angle, broadcasting the match to everyone in Galar, and probably quite a few people outside of it. This is the match everyone tunes into. It isn’t the sparse, inconsistent crowds that fill the seats during the gym challenge. Every seat in the field is occupied, challengers, tourists, and citizens alike, and they’re all watching them now. 

He coaxes a roar out of them as he steps onto the field.

“Here we have Challenger 761, Leon! And on the other side of the field,” His hand sweeps out to gesture at the other tunnel. “Challenger 241, Raihan!”

Raihan enters on the other side of the pitch, bathed in floodlights, and Leon focuses on him solely; his rival, his opponent, his friend.

They walk forward to face each other, and Leon smiles with jittery, terrified excitement. Raihan is handling the crowd well, but the shadow of exhilaration flickers behind his eyes, like the look on his face when the roller coaster plunged down to the earth. 

Rose plants a hand on either of their shoulders and leans down, muting his microphone to tell them both that, “The two of you should be proud that you made it this far. No matter how this match turns out, it will be a match for the history books.” 

Leon tries to ease the tension out of his shoulders. His history was made the second he stepped foot out of Postwick, and he’s going to make everyone know it.

Rose unmutes his mic and turns to address the crowd. “It’s with great pleasure I announce the last match of the semifinals! No matter who comes out on top, it’s sure to be a riveting match!”

He reaches for Raihan’s hand, and he squeezes back, the tips of his fingers callused.

“Good luck.”

“You too.” Raihan grins as he takes a step back. “You’ll need it.”

Something goes off in the distance, tiny popping, shell-cases breaking next to the sensitive equipment monitoring the Dynamax energy, and the entire battlefield is flooded with smoke. He moves to his trainer box where he’s supposed to as Rose retreats to the tunnels, and the sharp whistle of the referee indicates that the match has started.

The white burst of light of a pokemon being released cuts through the smoke, and he releases Dock onto the field. Raihan knows him too well to go through with Eris’ strategy - his Gigalith has sandstorm equipped, and once Eris takes damage her ability doesn’t help much.

The light reflects off Gigalith’s crystals as it roars, deep and mighty.

Raihan grins at him from across the field, smug and excited, and Leon smiles.

“Stealth rock!”

Pointed stones scatter his side of the battlefield, jagged and tapered, a living minefield.

“Dock, surf!”

Sonia helped him with strategy last night, both of them giddy after a night at the amusement park: lead with Dock in case Raihan went with his sandstorm strategy. He had the advantage against most of his team, and he wouldn’t lead with Duraludon. On the off chance he led with Flygon, he equipped Dock with ice punch.

The battlefield floods with water, but not quick enough to breach the protect hastily thrown up between them. 

“Earth power!”

The ground cracks and splits before it erupts beneath Gigalith’s feet, and really that should take it down, but he’s always been stubborn and this is no exception. 

Stone edge rips through the earth, leaving the terrain difficult to see through, but he doesn’t miss the glow of green in the background.

“Use earth power to knock over the pillars. Watch out.”

A flash of green from behind one pillar of upturned earth; solarbeam. 

“Surf!”

Dock is thrown back, grappling at the earth with one hand as he struggles to stay up, steam billowing from the wound on his chest. From the middle of the field, Gigalith is out of commission.

Flygon is next out onto the field. 

Dock may not be out, but he probably won’t last another attack, so Leon swaps for Eris.

Flygon summons a sandstorm as soon as he does, and strikes first after: earthquake.

Eris is not meant to take heavy hits, but she manages to hang on. 

“Play rough!”

She leaps from shadow to shadow, hiding in the crevisses left behind by the stones, before leaping onto Flygon and attacking with a ghostly clawed hand.

Flygon responds by slamming her into the ground and closing a wave over her.

“Eris!” He returns her for Tiamat, then, who easily outspeeds and dispatches it with one blue-tipped claw. 

Sandaconda does Dock in next, before he gets to deal any substantial damage. Leon swaps him in for Asha, golden scales glowing in the bright light, and the crowd roars. He feels his heartbeat under his skin, in his ears. Dragon claw takes it down.

Turtonator. 

It heats the field, and Asha gets in close with Dragon-claw, swiping as it returned the gesture. It unhinges its jaw and ash pours out, followed by a point-blank flamethrower.

But Asha’s scales are tougher than diamond, and it’s going to take more than that to throw her off.

“Keep applying pressure!” He yells over the sound. He’s pushed back into a corner; Asha has him beat in terms of stats. She can tank a few more hits, and she keeps swinging with renewed force.

Turtonator’s shell glows, and Leon curses under his breath. _Outrage._ It was a risky move; confusion wasn’t something to risk if it could be avoided, but Asha probably couldn’t take a direct hit, and that was the edge Raihan needed. 

“Get back!”

It’s too late. Turtanator moves with a speed Leon didn’t think it capable of, and in two strikes has Asha on the ground. 

He returns her to her ball, pauses, and sends out Tiamat instead. He’s faster, and can finish this in one hit. 

Tiamat creeps behind it, downing it with a final strike, and now Goodra. 

Tiamat doesn’t last two dragon pulses. The rain overhead falls and the lightning cracks and he sends out Micah next. King’s shield, repeat, and then, he pounces on his opening. Her blade comes down like a guillotine, and ends the fight.

But Raihan doesn’t have the look of a person who’s been cornered. He hunches slightly forward, his eyes bright with euphoria, no, something else. The same electricity. The determination is there the same way there are veins under his skin, the same way the sun will rise tomorrow. An instinct, a drive, something that simply exists, as simply and surely as anything else.

Finally, Vesta enters the field, and her roar commands the attention of the entire world.

This is inevitable, this fight has always been coming, a year in the making, and Leon wants to win. Raihan is standing before his dream, and he before Raihan’s, and this must be the terrible world of competition, the horrible reality that to achieve his dream, he must destroy Raihan’s. It feels cinematic, terrifying, horribly and beautifully terrifying. 

This battle decides everything.

And as his Duraludon takes the field, and as the Dynamax energy gathers at his field, he knows he is going to win, he wants to win, he _has_ to. 

Vesta towers overhead, beautiful in her destruction, the wreath of flames flickering around her neck, her wings, swirling infernos, collecting ash. Duraludon towers over them both, a monolith of Raihan’s strength, and Leon wants to fight, wants to claw tooth and nail, wants to win. 

They tear up the earth with steel, burn the grass with fire, color the sky with ash, and it is finally Duraludon who yields.

It happens in slow motion: the giant topples, and the shield of energy bursts as it shrinks into bright light, and in the moment of tense silence, as he watches and breathes and doesn’t quite believe, for the briefest of seconds, he knows what it’s like to stand on top of the world.

They made such a mess of the field that the League Staff are scrambling to fix it to make it presentable for the final match. It gives him the chance to slip away, though he isn’t quite sure where he’s going. 

It hasn’t really set in yet. The championship match is next, and this had to happen, and he isn’t sure how to feel. Sonia is blowing up his phone, but the group chat is quiet, and he paces the hallway that connects all the locker rooms. 

He catches Raihan without meaning to.

He must be coming back from the vending machine, or the nurse, or something, but he turns and startles and panics.

“I snuck away from the League Staff.” He blurts out. 

Raihan takes one look at him and bursts into poorly-concealed laughter. Leon is simultaneously mortified and so, so relieved, and the tension eases right out of him.

“Some Champion you’re gonna be.” He grins. “Running away from your wait staff.”

“You think I’m gonna win?” He decides not to comment on the 'wait staff' part of that statement. 

“You better.” He whacks him with the towel wrapped around his neck, and Leon yelps. “You owe it to us, now. You better not lose.”

“I won’t.” He says, and smiles. A hint of breathlessness. “I’m gonna win.”

Raihan grins, off tune, and Leon feels like he’s on fire, like he wants to sink back into the wall and disappear all at once. “You won’t if you don’t get back to the pitch. Hurry up, go!”

The Champion's match is all giddy terror, the height of euphoria, and the depth of dread. He shifts between his feet and swallows the hard chill of anticipation and looks at the cameras all the right ways and smiles and finally, finally, draws his pokemon to the field.

The Champion looks at him from across the field, and Leon knows in that moment that this is it, the defining moment of his career, his dream is right before his eyes. 

The Champion’s team is straight out of a competitive battling website, except in the hands of an experienced player. He knows this combination, one he’s studied for hours: This is a stalling team. 

His aggron is an absolute monster to take down: a mixed attacker that takes down both Eris and Micah before Dock finally ends it. The chandelure is a mixed attacker that Dock finishes off and the hydreigon a mixed attacker that Asha takes down, half of one tusk neatly dented. The sylveon is a surprise, and an issue, that Vesta burns to the ground.

As the Gigantimax energy drains off her, and his last pokemon sinks to the ground, he can’t quite grasp it, yet. 

The crowd roars, the sound swells, and Vesta tips her head back to roar. 

Gold, red and blue confetti explodes somewhere to his left, falling in a glittering cascade of shimmering light. Fireworks explode into the dark tapestry of night, painting it hot, fuschia pink, bright blue, brilliant purple. Vesta flies towards him over the pitch, still leaking heat and Dynamax energy, and he burns the tips of his fingers hugging her. 

She wraps him in her wings and it’s too hot but he doesn’t pull away, and the falling confetti covers them like wayward snow, and the entire team is stained red and gold and blue. There’s glitter in his hair that he’s never going to be able to get out, he’s tired and triumphant and he wouldn’t trade it for anything.

Eventually the commenters start to talk over the screaming crowd. The champion makes an announcement that he can’t hear - the _former_ champion - and he stumbles over the burnt turf to stand between Rose and the former champion as the cameras fix on his face and the lights burn away the exhaustion, leaving nothing but the floating echo of adrenaline and victory.

Rose takes his hand, wearing the wishing star, and raises it.

On the screens hung around the arena, he sees his own face reflected, smudged with dirt and ash, covered in gold and red and silver, and they’ve _won._

They immediately usher him out of the open arena and back towards the tunnels, flanked with security guards, as the celebration unfolds. The fireworks are still going on in the background, and he’s sure that there are going to be celebrations outside. Last year there were bands of toxtricity and exploud and musicians taking to the flooded streets. It was always the most active night of the year.

“Congratulations, Champion Leon, it was a wonderful match. It seems I was right to endorse you a year ago.”

“Thank you, sir.” He stumbles over his own feet trying to keep up with them. Champion. Him. 

“Now, we don’t want you to get overwhelmed by the press, being as young as you are, and the last thing anyone wants is for you to leave a bad impression or make a mistake on live television. It would be unbecoming of Galar’s youngest ever champion, don’t you think?”

The new epithet doesn’t quite douse the reality of the rest of that statement.

“I’m glad.” He smiles. “Now there’s only endless opportunity and potential. We’ll have you escorted back to your hotel. We’ll arrange your schedule for the morning, there’s quite a bit to be done, you know.”

He glances over his shoulder, and wonders where Sonia, Nessa, and Raihan are. He hopes they aren’t looking for him.

“Well, if you’re ready.”

He glances towards the door, at his fingerprint-smudged reflection. He looks different than he did starting out on this journey, all those months ago, and he feels different now, bringing with him a championship match, his team, his friends. Strange, to think of a time before this, strange, to think of a time after. Before he knew anything about battling and after this point, equally distant and confusing and strange. Strange, to look at himself now and realize that he's come out on the other side. 

But different isn't bad. And change always comes, has been coming for a while. He opens the door.

"I'm ready."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Slightly longer chapter!! I really went all in with this one guys lmao. I hope the battle scenes didn't disappoint, I was mainly focused on the emotional undertones, which is where the main tension is. 
> 
> I'm on break this week, so I'll probably be able to get the next chapter out a little faster. Happy holidays, to anyone who celebrates!


	18. Chapter 18

The rest of the night is a haze.

The staff escort him back to the hotel room, ushering him away from the press and the cameras and flashing lights. Reporters should be wagering for his time, crowding his escape, bidding for interviews - not that he necessarily wants that, but it feels more like he’s waiting for the other shoe to drop. There has to be some drawback, doesn’t there? This is too… easy.

The music outside is loud enough to feel the vibrations in his chest, and it leaves him shaky, off kilter. The tide of adrenaline crashes in his chest, foamy around the edges, high on hyper sensation. His fingers shake too hard to type anything out, so he tosses his phone on the silk sheets and waits for Sonia to text back.

The lights outside are bright enough to see flashes of them through the thick velvet curtains but he isn’t confident enough to open them and let the world creep inside.

Instead, he lets the water run, turns back to his phone, and finds that he has at least sixteen missed calls and enough texts from the group chat to probably fry his phone once and for all.

_Where are you??  
Oh shit you’re doing champion things aren’t you? Look at you   
We’re on fifth street when you’re done! There’s this big amphitheatre thing and there’s a guy in an electabuzz costume playing the guitar  
You really can’t miss it_

Calls from his mother and Sonia, a picture of Hop with his charizard patterned blanket wrapped around his shoulders like the cheesy heroes from the old pokestar studios movies, a hand triumphantly in the air, and even without sound he can just tell that his little brother is shrieking. In the next video, he can hear Hop screaming his heart out while his wooloo bounces on the couch cushions, and his mother’s tearful laughter is just audible on the other side. It’s grainy and pixelated to all hell, and then Hop is jumping after and screaming directly into the phone. He watches it no less than three times. 

There’s calls from old classmates, a picture of Raihan and Nessa knocking back miniature glasses of sparkling water, fireworks drawn around their heads like starlit crowns, Sonia holding up cracked glowsticks like burning fireflies against the night sky. 

The farther he scrolls back in the chat, the further it descends into the madness of half finished capital letters and mostly incomprehensible key-smashes, and looking at them makes his face hurt from smiling. 

_I’m in the hotel,_ he texts, once the sparkling bubbles of triumph and adrenaline fizzle away and he can manage it. _Have to stay here to avoid reporters_

He texts his mom and he calls the professor back (and lord, this has to be the first time he’s ever seen her using a phone, because he didn’t even know she had one) and waits, pacing the length of the room, for them to return the message.

_Hotel room?_ Nessa texts, and then, _we’re smuggling out food, what do you want?_

He doesn’t even have time to fire back a rightfully confused _what_ before Raihan sends back a picture of Sonia ducking under the rope for one of the rides with an armful of brightly colored hard candy. Raihan has to have at least two bags of popcorn and Nessa has a bag of rapidash-themed cotton candy clutched to her chest like giratina itself was chasing her.

He _loves_ these idiots.

They arrive at the door not five minutes later, Nessa nearly kicks the door down, breathless and hair windswept, before piling inside and dumping the food on the ground.

Raihan grins widely at him, exposing the sharp edges of his canines. “Told you you’d win.”

Leon doesn’t even think before he tackles him in a hug.

Nessa flicks a kernel at them. “You guys are gonna give me cavities.”

“Not the candy you made me take?” Sonia raises her eyebrow at the admittedly ambitious amount of junk food on the floor. 

“That too, and don’t tell me you didn’t want to.”

Sonia promptly ignores her. “How’s this for a celebration? We don’t need to go down there anyways. Who wants to watch bad movies?”

Half of the blankets end up on the floor and so do the pillows, and it’s almost a shame to watch such an expensive TV show such a terrible romcom, but Leon hasn’t felt this good in years. 

“Why are you in here, anyways?” Raihan says, cautious to keep his voice down as Sonia slumps down on Nessa’s shoulder. “Shouldn’t you be out partying in the street with everybody else? You said something about reporters but that’s kinda par for the course, right?”

Leon shrugs. “I guess the Chairman wanted to save that stuff for later.”

Raihan’s face twists. “I guess that would make sense. All interviews are scripted anyways. They probably didn’t want you to be caught off guard and say something stupid.”

“I wouldn’t do that!”

Raihan stares at him.

“I think this is bullying.” 

Raihan shoves him. “So… what now?”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re champion now. What comes after?”

“The chairman just said there’s ‘a lot to be done.’ Also he’s coming back tomorrow morning, so we should probably clean this up.” He grimaces, gesturing at the popcorn stuck to the blanket. 

Raihan groans dramatically and flips onto his stomach, making a sound somewhere between a ruffled purrloin and dying sealeo. “Do we have to?”

“Yes.” Leon yanks at the blanket he’s laying on. “And you’re helping me.”

He peeks out at him from between his arms and Leon sees him grinning before he covers it up with another groan. “Fine, this is so uncool, though. Cleaning up after yourself at your own celebration.”

Leon whacks him with the blanket, smothering another surge of laughter. “Stop complaining and help me, you loser.”

“Shut up.”

Nessa makes a noise of protest from her heap on the bed. Leon presses a finger to his lips. From that point on, clean up is quiet enough that you could mistake laughter for the humming of the air conditioning.

The chairman and his entourage of employees do, in fact, come to retrieve him early the next morning. If they’re put off by the tangle of kids then they’re polite enough not to say anything about it. Professionalism, he learns then, is very important in this line of work. 

Raihan and Nessa are still asleep by the time he has to go, but Sonia has dragged herself from her bed (complaining about the glitter she somehow got in her hair and the glow sticks littered around the room) and waved goodbye as he was escorted out and towards Rose Tower, the most prestigious place in all of Galar.

It’s reputation preceded it, and Leon becomes very aware, very suddenly, of the life he has walked into. The tower, with all its height and majesty, towers over the rest of the city, the stadium in its shadow. Walls of tinted glass, like the sea glass you scrounge at the beach, sparkles brilliantly in the light, built into thousands of feet of titanium and steel. Its strength and prestige was more than an illusion; steel beams that carried the weight of the building, the weight of the nation, the center of trade and the league and domestic territory. It was like walking into the control center of the entire world, with the switchboard at his fingers. 

Not to imply anything about his actual standing, of course, because before the looming intimidation, Leon must be like an ant. 

The league controls every facet of society he can think of - the Chairman’s name is on the shipping and fishing companies and ports, in Hulbury, on the energy plants in Motostoke and Hammerlocke, in the research centers for dynamax energy, with every new brand featured in the boutiques lining the streets in the cities, on the gyms, the league hotels, the licensing agencies. And now Leon is caught in the middle of the web, and it’s like he can’t figure out if he’s more excited or nervous.

He’s also tired. Staying up late hadn't been a good idea.

(He’d never quite enjoyed the mornings, but he’d grown up on a farm, he knew well enough how to deal with them. He wasn’t swaying on his feet, or anything like that).

Rose Tower is, predictably, swarmed with people. The entrance lobby is bloated with workers and photographers and employees of any of the micro companies they have jurisdiction over. Just looking at all the chaos makes his head hurt. 

“Time for the photoshoot.” Rose says, directing him to a room already set up to look like he just got out of his match. 

He hates photoshoots. So much. The only one that might hate them more is Vesta, probably cursing their win from her pokeball. The first time a camera got too close to her face she melted it off. Rose had laughed, then, and wrote off the price of the camera like it was nothing (and it was probably nothing, to a man who dealt in millions), but Leon was absolutely mortified, both for his reputation and for the fact that the camera probably cost more than his life.

So, she’s not coming out to greet anyone.

(Neither is Eris. He learned his lesson the first time after she ate all the food at the table, somehow, he doesn’t even want to know).

But Micah is relatively well behaved and the least likely of them to cause any property damage.

“You ready?” The photographer calls, a fluffy white scarf that Sonia would probably love wrapped around his neck. The Chairman is talking to someone on the other side of the set over the phone, and Oleana doesn’t so much as glance in his direction, so he shrugs and they start.

The novelty of the situation wears off about thirty minutes in. He wants to rub his eye but then he’ll mess up the makeup that they just spent twenty minutes on, the lights are a little too hot and bright to look at them without tearing up for longer than thirty seconds, and he’s tripped over the cords twice now. 

“You’ll get the hang of it.” Rose says, and if it were anyone else, that might at least sound consolatory. All he can hear is _pet project._

“I will.” He says, and means it.

There are wardrobe decisions to be made, press conferences to be had. Rose controls the press so they don’t go for his throat like he had halfway been expecting them to, and he hasn’t yet been dropped straight into the deep end when it comes to public perception, so that’s… good, he thinks. He has an account now (one that he doesn’t control, nor can he add any pictures to, which he finds deeply unfortunate considering it’s dire that everyone else see his team as well) and there are posters around the region with his face printed on them, which is… a little bit creepy.

Best of all are the promotional battle pictures advertising the final fight: richly colored depictions of Vesta, glowing with Dynamax energy, crowned with fire and made from infernos. He wants that tattooed on him.

(He also can’t get tattoos. It’s not really a conflict of interest, though, because he had never had any particularly strong feelings before. Or piercings, which is a little disappointing because Sonia offered to pierce his ears last week and now he can’t).

There’s things to be done, paperwork to sign off on, and Leon has been a champion for all of one week and already he feels like he’s been doing it a lifetime. 

“This color or this one?” One of the fitters asks another, gesturing to two equally beautiful pieces of clothing. She makes a contemplative face, and picks the second one.

“Try not to move around so much.” Says the woman taking his measurements. He tries to ignore the tape around his waist.

Somewhere in the distance, Rose mutters something about a public appearance coach, and getting him a course in public speaking. 

On the table a few feet away, his phone buzzes. He cranes his neck, but has to wait until she’s finished to go and pick it up.

_Your Mom invited us back to Postwick ;)_

He smiles brightly, and someone snaps a picture.

_I’ve been gone for two days and she already replaced me with you?? Typical_

_Well, I am pretty great_   
_When will you get here?_

“Leon!” Rose calls. “We need to wrap it up here quickly, you can talk to your friends later.”

Soon, is all he texts back, before returning to his post.

Soon refers, approximately, to two more days. Raihan sends him pictures of wooloo every five minutes to ‘remind him of home’ as if he didn’t spend the majority of his life with him, and he, in retaliation, takes pictures of every single building he sees and sends them back with the captions _only city kids will understand_ and, in return, gets a picture of a face that doesn’t look anything close to impressed. Leon is a little bit proud of himself, he has to say.

Even then, the return home is for business, but he doesn’t have to let them know yet.

They descend from the corviknight taxi, Oleana with all the enthusiasm that one might walk into a funeral with, carrying a briefcase full of legal papers at her side.

Mom already has the oven going, and the entire kitchen smells like strawberries and warmth.

Sonia, Nessa, Raihan, and Hop greet his arrival (Hop barrels into him with all the force his tiny frame can manage, and Leon just wraps his arms around him before he falls). 

“We can take care of this inside with your mother.” Rose smiles, and then walks inside.

She probably has a lot of paperwork to go through, and sign her name where appropriate. 

There was the little roadblock that was Leon was a minor, and they needed to work around the issue that was schooling. Now that the league challenge was over, there technically wasn’t any justification for him to be out of school, at least until he was seventeen, and arrangements would need to be made.

And then there was the other things: the language coach, to help stop the mumbling that he apparently did, and the public speaking lessons, personal trainers, his studies. 

He’s content to let Mom deal with it (and content to let Mom handle the savings he’s been funneling into an account).

“Lee!” Hop jumps from the picnic table where Leon set him down. “You’re back!”

“How long’ve you got?” Raihan asks, leaning over the table in what’s probably an attempt to look cool.

“A couple days break until the tutoring starts.”

“Look at you, getting champion class education.” Sonia digs her elbow into his side.

“Says the professor’s granddaughter.” 

Sonia laughs and shoves him off. “Yeah, yeah. What’s it like? You haven’t been texting back lately.”

He shakes his head, and shoves his hair back behind his ears. It’s been getting longer. The stylists had asked him if he wanted to grow it out or not. 

"Yeah, Dandelion," Raihan grins, "What's up with that?"

"Oh my god, who told you that?"

His old childhood nickname, oh god no.

"Hop?" He presses a dramatic hand to his chest. "Was it you that betrayed me?"

"I didn't!" Hop yells, and jumps off the bench. "It's your name in Mom's phone!"

He hides his face in his hands and groans.

"Aw," Sonia coos, like the monster she is, "I think it's cute."

"I hate all of you."

Mom's head pokes out of the door. "Kids! Food's ready!"

"Race you." Raihan tells him, and they both bolt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me last chapter "yeah haha maybe I'll update early"  
> So that was a fucking lie
> 
> Sorry this is late dfsafdsa Hope you enjoyed tho


	19. Chapter 19

The trip home ends quicker than he would’ve hoped. 

The kitchen table is swimming with paperwork; it looks out of place on the faded yellow tablecloth, meant more for cookie sheets and pleasant company than for practical work. Mom always did her bills on the counter next to the stove, or over the coffee table in the living room. 

There were signatures to be given, written in Mom’s somewhat grudging, looping handwriting. She still had her calligraphy pens in the drawers around here, stashed for the occasion and carefully out of sight. 

Leon glances out the window to the field. Hop is chasing his wooloo around the field, weaving in and out of the tall, swaying grass. Raihan jumps in to intercept him, and Sonia screeches as Zeus nips at her ankles.

He’s pulled from his observations by a question from the Chairman, something concerning bank accounts now that his wage is more sizable.

He has a wage. One significant enough to require a bank account of its own. It’s an earth-shattering revelation. It’s all going into a savings account, apparently. Mom doesn’t want to have the ‘who gets the money’ fight in the presence of well-kept company, so she politely nods and signs her name on the bottom of the paper so the account can be made in her name.

“Lovely.” Rose smiles. “Now there’s just the schooling issue to worry about-”

An NDA the thickness of the average college textbook smacks down on the table with enough force to shake its legs. It probably weighs more than he does.

“Everything you need to worry about is included in there.” He gestures to the packet. Mom takes one tight-lipped look at it and thumbs through it slowly, and gives up around a quarter of the way through. Not that he can blame her, that thing is a monstrosity even by paperwork standards. “Think of it as a homeschool arrangement. Advanced curriculum to bat, with added benefits considering he’s a class of one.” 

While Mom skims through that and prints her name periodically after each large chunk of text, Oleana arranges the papers in her gilded briefcase, terribly out of place in their house, with its soft velvet lining. Next to the stained oven that must be at least three decades old, the frilly white curtains and the faded off-white floor tiles, they looked sorely out of place. Leon, however, fits right into the endearing coziness like he never left.

Like he isn’t leaving again, ripped right back out of his element. 

“This is the last one?”

“The last one.” Rose assures, as Mom leaves her name on the last line. She slides it over to him, and it too ends up filed neatly in the briefcase. Oleana snaps it closed and wastes no time standing gracefully and striding out the door, her black shiny heels clacking against the floor. 

“It was lovely meeting you.” He smiles and spins the platitude like strands of golden yan. “We’ll give you two your space. Leon, if you could meet us at the taxi by half after, we’ll be ready to go.”

He nods, and watches anxiously as they leave out the front door and start down the dirt path, and doesn’t miss the way his friends turn to watch their procession leave.

“Oh, Leon.” Mom says, as soon as Rose and Oleana are well on their way down the path, standing up out of her chair to walk over and wrap her arms around him. “I’m so proud of you, I just wish I didn’t have to be proud from a distance.”

“It’s okay, Mom.” He reciprocates the gesture. “It’s only for a little while. I’ll visit, and we can talk over the phone and everything.”

She sighs against his side. “You better remember to call, young man. Every day. And you can always come home, for any reason. If you decide you don’t like it up in Wyndon, or if you don’t want to be   
champion anymore, or if you just want to visit, we’re always here, and if I think for a second that anything’s wrong-”

“Mom!” He laughs. “Mom, I promise, I’ll be _fine._ And I’ll visit, and call, every day.”

She sighs, the ghost of a smile on her face, and pulls away. He’s not making this easy on her, he’s sure this isn’t easy: his bedroom door is always closed now, sort of like the way all of Dad’s pictures migrated to the fireplace after he died, all his books and magazines and newspapers boxed away under the stairs. But she signed the papers anyways because she wants him to be happy, and the least he can do is return the favor. “I know you will. Now, go and say goodbye to your friends and your brother.”

He smiles and shoots her a thumbs-up, before racing up the stairs to retrieve his suitcase from his room. He somehow manages to drag it down the stairs and maneuver it out the door, where he’s stormed on the front steps by the four of them. 

Hop, his arms wrapped around Wooloo’s fluffy sides, wilts at the sight of the suitcase. “You’re leaving already?”

He kneels down. “Yeah, I gotta go, but I promise I’ll be back! We’ll still talk every day, okay?”

Hop pouts. “I thought after you became champion you’d get to stay home.”

Me too. 

He smiles, somewhat strained. “I know, it kinda sucks, but I promise it won’t be that bad. I’m the champion now, they can’t stop me if I want to visit home, okay? So keep helping Mom with the farm for me, and don’t cause her any trouble.”

Hop looks at him seriously. “I would never.” 

Sonia bounds forward to hug him next. “Send pictures of all your cool champion stuff.” She says. “And don’t forget about us nobodies.”

“You’re literally Professor Magnolia’s granddaughter-”

Nessa swings an arm over his shoulder. “Congrats on the champion thing, try to have fun without us up there. Drink a bunch of overpriced coffee for me.”

He puts a hand on his chest. “I promise.”

Raihan steps forward, hands tucked in his pockets.

“What?” Nessa raises an eyebrow. “Too cool to join in the group hug with the rest of us losers?”

Raihan scoffs, but Leon grabs his wrist and tugs him into the hug. He rolls his eyes, and then drapes his arms over all three of them. Sonia manages to twist her arm out enough to take a picture of the four of them tangled together like a game of twister gone wrong.

“Send that to me.” Raihan says. Sonia taps the send button. “Done.”

Hop squirms into the hug too, and ends up wrapping his arms around his leg. 

Sonia glances at the time on her watch. “Oh, you should probably get going.”

“There’s a mankey attached to my leg.” 

Hop giggles, and holds on tighter.

Sonia crouches down and offers him a hand. “Hop, do you wanna see Nessa’s drednaw? He’s really cool.”

“Yeah!” His eyes light up, and he immediately releases his death grip and takes her offered hand. With her free hand, she grabs his shoulder. “Good luck, Leon! And if you forget about any of us I’m coming up there personally to knock some sense back into you!” Her eyes slide to Raihan. “We’ll give you some alone time.”

The three of them trot away, Hop waving as they do so. 

His ears feel hot. _What’s that supposed to mean?_

Raihan slouches, his hands back in his pockets. Leon mimics the action, burrowing deeper into his hoodie to combat the steadily growing Autumn wind. “So,” He drawls. There’s still that almost-falling feeling locked in his chest, climbing the cage of his ribs and tickling the back of his throat, the mix of adrenaline and anticipation as you sat at the top of the hill on a roller coaster. “I’ll see you later?”

Raihan grins back. “Hammerlocke isn’t that far.”

“Are you going back to work at your parent’s conservatory?”

“Aren’t you gonna be late?”

Leon waves a hand and douses that little flame of anxiety. Maybe they’ll just leave if he isn’t there in time. “They can wait a few minutes.”

“Then, yeah. There’s a new clutch of deino coming in, got ‘em from the South, I think I heard my Mom calling it the Crown Tundra or something, and those little suckers are hard to raise. He needs some extra help around the lab.”

“Send me pictures.”

“I will.” He cracks another grin, and rocks back on his feet. “Hey, congrats on the title, and good luck with everything.”

Leon grins right back. “I expect more battles with you, number one rival.” 

Something in Raihan’s eyes glints. “Count on it.”

He doesn’t bother saying anything more than that, because they’ll see each other soon again. They’re an inevitability that he recognizes innately: the determination in Raihan’s face was the same as his. Without a doubt, they’d see each other soon again. 

“I really _will_ be late if I don’t get going.” He throws a smile over his shoulder. “See you later, Raihan.”

Raihan laughs and waves as he runs down the path.

The next month is nothing short of chaos. 

Months of whirlwind activity punctuated by brief appearances of calm like an oasis in the hottest desert on earth. Reprieve that really only serves as the calm before the storm that’s bound to drag him in again. 

_Look, it’s you,_ he captions on a picture he sends to Raihan of a flygon drawn in frosting on a sheet cake he passes by in the window of a bakery. His lunch break ends in five minutes and he really needs to get back to the photoshoot because the last time he left his team alone with the photographers Vesta set the backdrop on fire and Eris ate three props.

Yes, _ate._ No, he doesn’t know how, and no, no one was willing to tell him. He can only assume it was too traumatizing to relive. Micah is the only well behaved one among them (it used to be Asha, too, before she destroyed an entire food platter because she got bored) and he doesn’t trust them for a second.

He walks back to the studio and his phone buzzes with a notification for his lesson later with his public appearance coach. A month still hadn't ironed out the nervous trill in his voice or the way he fell back on crutch words when he was startled or worried, but there was hope for him still, apparently. He needs to get his work done by tonight because he has an upcoming test, and tomorrow he has the gym free and Asha can finally get some of that pent up energy out.

On the way in he nearly trips over a thick black coil of wire right by the entrance. The lights and mirrors are being adjusted, and Vesta, from her corner, perks up when she sees him approaching, immediately flying over to him to rest her chin on his head and wrap her wings around him.

Raihan gets a picture of that, too.

_Why was she in the corner?_ He asks, to which he replies, _the last time I left she got mad and melted a camera. She has separation anxiety._

She exhales a trail of smoke and he scratches the edge of her jaw. 

“Leon!” The head photographer calls. 

“Sorry!” He pockets his phone and misses the clutch of deino eggs Raihan says in return in exchange for flashing lights that leave spots in his eyes afterwards. Vesta poses, regal and magnificent next to him, daring any opponent to step up to the challenge and engage her. The production after would make her eyes a little fiercer, her fire brighter, her claws more wickedly sharp. 

He tugs at his collar as they call for another five minute break. Photoshoots are another one of the more difficult facets of champion life. Large crowds and camera lenses pointed his way, ready to sharpen his image such that it was ready for public consumption. 

The Public Appearance Coach was helping, of course, and so were the photoshoots. When you stood tall you needed to relax your shoulders to avoid looking too tense, when you spoke you pulled your voice from your chest and spoke flued, slow, confident, and if you weren’t, then you faked it until you were. 

He swallows a yawn, and narrowly avoids another incident with Tiamat.

“Don’t knock anything over.” He says. Tiamat stares, unsubtly, at the high towers of stacked equipment. Expensive equipment, he might add. Heavy looking equipment, sleek, cutting-edge cameras and speakers. “Don’t do it.”

Eris hisses at him from beneath the table, scaring one of the passing agents so bad that he nearly jumps out of his skin.

“Sorry.” He smiles apologetically. He thought they’d be used to her after a month, but maybe his nonchalance was just a him thing. “Eris, please don’t do that, you’re gonna give someone a heart attack.”

A more contrite hiss, and then the shadowy hand pulls the tablecloth back down so she can sit peacefully in the darkness. She doesn’t like the flashing lights much. 

“Can you get her out from under there?” His agent asks, eyeing the table, the edge of her lip curled. “We need another team shot.”

“Oh, yeah, sure.” 

He bends down, and pushes the cloth aside again. “Eris, you heard her. C’mon, we gotta go take a few more. Won’t take too long, I promise. Please don’t bite anyone.”

How she managed to bite someone without having (visible) teeth was a mystery to him that he hoped would never be solved. She could keep her weird ghost teeth to herself. As long as she didn’t chew through any cables (or people), it was fine by him.

“Sorry, she doesn’t like the flashing lights.”

“Well, it can’t be helped.” A technician says, flipping the lens. “It is a ghost type after all. Not really suited for this kind of thing, you know?”

His smile melts into plastic. “Oh?”

“Try to hold yourself a little less stiff. And relax your face a little.”

The camera clicks and he leans to the agent, here in place for Rose and Oleana. They go for one more before she approaches him. 

“Alright, that should be all for today.”

He gathers his things, clipping everyone’s ball back to his belt. He has an assignment to finish when he gets back to his room, and he really needs to stretch. He can feel the acidic pain in his calves from last night’s run. 

He rubs his eye, fighting back another yawn, and makeup comes smeared on the back of his hand. Good thing he doesn’t have any more public appearances today. 

“About your account.” She says. Leon perks up. Having social media accounts is a new and unprecedented thing as well. It’s not exactly his account, since it’s managed by some PR team, but it’s under his name and mostly features pictures of him and his team. “We need more pictures of you and your team. PR said that it would improve your public ratings.”

He nods absentmindedly. There’s a lot to remember that he hadn't initially considered about this position: the PR, for one.

There’s a camera flash somewhere in his peripheral vision. He doesn’t think he’ll ever get used to that.

“If we don’t hurry, we’ll be late.”

“Yes Ma’am.”

In the chaos, he forgets about the incidents of trafficking altogether. 

He gets up at the crack of dawn and tags behind the chairman for meetings, press conferences, listens to them talk about what to do with the major and minor divisions. They were having problems with Spikemuth again, probably concerning the power spot, because that was all they ever argued about. Rose proposed moving one of the minor league divisions up to push it out of the circuit, but the rest of the board vetoed the decision. 

It is, in Leon’s humble opinion, a waste of time, considering his input isn’t even required (or appreciated). He’s just there to be the brand’s mouthpiece and smile for the camera when they point it his way. 

And all the running around perfectly excuses his negligence in forgetting about the trafficking. 

He sits on the floor of his room, Eris on his lap and Tiamat floating on the balcony, probably trying to scare innocent passerby, when the news comes on. He’s about to switch it off, because to do math he needs to be able to focus on math and not whatever scandal the news anchors have deemed worthy of television coverage, when the headline catches his eye. 

The report is over as quick as it came, quickly brushed over as another case comes tumbling in, but it looks familiar. He closes his laptop. Word problems can wait.

Circhester, Circhester… that was where the last incident of trafficking had been, hadn't it? In the water, they’d had to stand in the cold for a ridiculously long amount of time and the ranger hadn't even been able to do anything about it.

_Did any of you guys see the news?_ He shoots a text to the group chat. A few bubbles appear before Raihan answers.

_No, y?_

He links to an article covering the topic. He skims over the chunk of text - an unregistered boat sitting in privately owned waters, disrupting protected habitats. 

_Remember what happened in Circhester?_

Nessa’s next to join the chat: _yeah, thats weird_

Good, so he wasn’t the only one. Nowhere was there a mention of any actual trafficking, nor was there a mention of prior incidents, either because there was no way to link the boat to any misdeeds or because they were deliberately excluding that part. 

He consults his gym leader group chat again. Very rarely does anyone reply in a timely manner, but considering they’re all old Leon can’t exactly hold it against them. He doesn’t expect a quick reply, because no one except Pier’s mom is ever up this late.

_Do u guys know what’s going on in Circhester?_

He sets his phone back down and goes back to trawling the internet for information. Unfortunately for him, the internet is not, in fact, omnipotent and even parsing through sketchy, poorly organized sites doesn't yield anything promising.

Then, the text from Melony comes: _There's an incident with the port, we'll get it settled, nothing to worry about_

If they couldn't catch them the first time, he doubts that they can do it this time. _Do you need any help?_

He cancels his makeup appointment for tomorrow morning and tells Oleana where he's going. She purses her lips, but types something into her computer and doesn't try to stop him. 

Good enough for him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys sorry this is late!! Lots of things going on rn
> 
> Anyways Leon's team is absolutely feral and does not do well in civilized environments
> 
> Photographer, holding a flashlight under the table: Are you ready to come out yet?  
> Eris: *demonic hissing*  
> Photographer: Understandable have a nice day


	20. Chapter 20

Circhester looks different at night than it does during the day.

The breeze off the harbor rolls clouds of frosty mist into the narrow streets and alleys of bleached cobblestone. At the edge of the frothing water, swamped with chunks of ice bobbing on the waves, it fees even colder. The full moon peeks out from behind heavy cloud cover. Through the briny haze of dark, the reflective eyes of mantyke and belly-up grapploct stare back at him. 

He inhales, and the cold burns his throat all the way down. The air smells like fish and bilge water. He wraps his jacket closer around him and steps back towards Vesta’s warmth. 

Alternating red and blue police lights blur in his periphery, near the slow drifting cargo ships docking in the harbor. 

Melony looks completely in her element, even among the cold and sea spray. Her lapras floats on top of the frigid waves, probably cold enough to kill you before you got the chance to drown. She’s helping comb the water for any evidence dropped off the edge of the boat that’s thus far eluded custody. Fishing hooks, nets, bait. He would let Dock out to help her, but the water this time of night, this time of year, is probably much too cold for him. 

Fishing here isn’t exactly illegal, but it’s certainly ill advised, what with the rather aggressive pokemon population. 

Melony gestures him over from the other side of the wet cement. Salt crunches under his step.

“Still haven’t found anything?”

She shakes her head, tucking a curl of white hair behind her ear. “Unfortunately not. We have photographic evidence of the boat this time though, and they found a Sealeo in the water. Poor thing was brought up from the Crown Tundra, we think. Must’ve jumped overboard at some point.”

It wasn’t anywhere to be seen now, so it must’ve already been brought to the pokemon center. He stretches his fingers, trying to work some feeling back into them. “Did you see which way they ended up going?”

I’ll get the ranger.” She replies, and calls over their only witness, the on duty ranger who had the misfortune of serving the night shift out here. She looks ready to keel over, her cheeks wind scarred and nose red. “Did you happen to see which way the boat went.”

“Um, I’m not sure. I was focused on the Sealeo, but I think it went that way.” She pointed southeast, just vaguely following the jutting teeth of rock outlining Spikemuth’s border.

“They were in a big cargo boat, right? There’s no way it can be going that fast. Me and Vesta can go after it, see if we can find anything.”

Melony purses her lips. “I don’t know. The air’s gotta be freezing, and there’s practically no visibility. It looks like there’s a storm coming too. You don’t want to be out there too long, or get lost.”

He rocks back on his heels. “How long has it been?”

“Two, three hours, maybe?”

He glances sideways at Vesta. She looks fine despite the cold, the flame on her tail burning heavy like the beacon of a lighthouse. He hasn’t gone anywhere with her in ages, much less had the time or freedom to train on their own terms.

“We’ll just go out and look, we’ll be quick.” He promises, and swings a leg around her shoulders as she ducks her head down.

Melony sighs, and checks her watch. “Just… if you’re not back in forty five minutes, we’re going after you.”

“Got it.”

Vesta opens her wings, wide and proud, radiating heat. Smoke culs off of her, superheating the air fast enough to sublimate the ice slicks at their feet. 

“Ready, girl?” 

Two great wing beats and she’s in the air, gliding over the cold breeze rolling in off the waves. She doesn’t give the ice the chance to start sticking to her, burning through it easily as she soars over the waves, low enough not to feel the full brunt of the gales churning above.

He flicks his flashlight on, scouring the dark waves for anything reflective. A colony of wishiwashi glints beneath the surface of the water. An octillery curls its tentacle angrily as they pass above it. 

The wind gets worse, and snow begins to fall. Most of it melts before it can get anywhere near them, though, as Vesta kicks up the internal heat enough to burn his hands. She angles her wing left and catches the cool undercurrent above the waves. He can see the edge of the storm. Once they get past this stretch of coast, they should be safe.

They break out of the snow eventually, and Vesta takes a break on the pebble beach, grumbling as she shifts her claws over the wet, uneven distribution of rocks, shaking herself like a hedier. 

He pats her wing. “Well, I guess we should start heading back. Maybe there really was nothing to find after all.”

Disappointing, but a reality that needed to be dealt with anyways. He still had duties to attend to, and Melony was waiting for them, and he really wanted to get back somewhere warm and maybe get more than an hour of sleep, if time permitted. 

Vesta lifts her nose in the air. He follows her gaze with her eyes, stepping closer.

It smells like smoke.

He knows there are refineries dotting the outskirts of the region, visited a few once or twice, as per the Chairman’s instructions. He’s well versed in smoke, too. He and Vesta, air and fuel, an untameable wildfire. He had inhaled enough smoke to know it like the back of his hand. Thick blots of it, hiding among the darkness of the sky.

He scrunches up his nose. He can’t remember any factories being on this side of Spikemuth, couldn’t remember anything being built around Spikemuth, actually. The Chairman didn’t like going over there. It was almost vindictive, but they were adamant about the position of their gym and not even coercion was going to stop them. 

“That’s a factory, right? It’s gotta be close.” 

They walk, Vesta’s tail swinging like a lantern in the dim, dark air, until the dirt shot through with permafrost turns to gravel. 

The building in the distance is tall, a juxtaposition of land and sea, cradled on the stretch of rocky beach between the water and the sheltering hill of scraggly grass behind it. It was gray, crowned with columns of chimneys spewing smoke into the air, corralled by what must be miles of barbed wire topped with security cameras perched like mandibuzz. 

It looks like the facility Tiamat broke out of, come to think of it.

“It’s private property.” He squints at the warning on the fence - which is apparently electrically changed, wow. “... I don’t think there’s any getting in there.”

Nothing short of Chairman Rose could probably get in there. His trainer license meant jack shit somewhere like this. 

He also doesn’t miss the garage near the water, easily large enough for several cargo ships to fit in. 

“Alternative energy?” He stares at the plate again. “This’s gotta be another Dynamaxing plant, right?”

There’s no way it could be anything else, really.

If the boat was gone for three, maybe more, hours, then it was entirely plausible that they were just too far away to catch up to. There was something _odd_ about it though, just a little off. Like the Slumbering Weald, it struck alarm bells in his head.

“C’mon, let’s just go back. Melony’s gonna get worried soon.”

Vesta huffs, her breath folding into steam in the air, but acquiesces.

“Dude, no offense, but you kind of look like shit.”

Leon glares at Sonia from beneath his sunglasses. His hair is concealed under his hood, and this sweatshirt is two sizes too big for him, and the light is giving him a headache. “Wow, how could that possibly be offensive?”

She sips her smoothie loudly, and checks her phone. “So how did last night go?”

“We didn’t find anything.” He sighs. “Did Raihan and Nessa say when they were getting here?”

“Don’t worry.” She teases. “Your boyfriend will be here soon.”

He stomps on her foot, and she yelps. “With your girlfriend.”

Sonia squawks. “I never should’ve bought you that drink.”

He sips his coffee-mocha-whatever this thing is pointedly. “But you didn’t.”

She rolls her eyes. “I can’t believe _I’m_ paying for _you,_ Mr. Moneybags.”

“It’s because you love me.” He informs her smugly. “And you know I’m not in control of my finances.”

He was also on a strict diet, and he was going to regret drinking this later. He’s already starting to regret it. He takes another sip. This probably has so much sugar in it, holy shit, his nutritionist is going to kill him. 

“Man.” She sighs, tapping her newly manicured nails on the table. “Grandma keeps making me help her with her field work. She asked me the other day while she was looking at her monitor if I knew about DNA sequencing. Like, do I look like I know how gene mapping works?”

She bites down on her straw. “I do now. She made me learn.”

Leon grins. “What’s she working on now?”

Sonia shrugs. “New running theory is that the Dynamax factor has something to do with epigenetics. Problem is she hasn’t figured out a way to isolate the gene or gene clusters causing this, or how to distinguish its active from inactive state, or what triggers it. Me and her research assistant have a bet going on that by next week it’s gonna be exposure theory.”

Leon just nods. It’s easier. He’s too tired to think straight.

Raihan and Nessa sweep in like a hurricane. 

Raihan drops down into the seat next to him, slinging an arm around his shoulder. Sonia grins at him from across the table and he sticks his tongue out. 

“Hey,” He greets. “How’s our favorite champion?”

“Tired.” He says. “Borderline hypothermic.”

Nessa raises an eyebrow. “I’m surprised you know that word.”

“... Melony yelled at me.”

She snorts. 

Raihan tugs him closer. “How was your investigation?”

“Useless.” He groans. “But…”

“But?” Nessa prompts, digging a spoon into her ice cream despite it being twenty degrees. 

“There was this weird building. I don’t know. I just got a feeling, y’know?”

“You’re a ghost type trainer.” Sonia points out. “You probably shouldn’t ignore those.”

“I don’t know.” He sighs. “It’s just - do you ever think it’s weird that the Rose corporations control everything in the region?”

Sonia frowns at the topic change, but continues. “My Grandma complains about it all the time.”

“...right.”

There’s something _there._ Something he’s not getting. 

He’s probably just sleep deprived. He’s been tired for a while now, running around on Rose’s schedule.

“Nevermind, forget I said anything. What’s up with you guys?”

“Helping my Mom.” Nessa says. “Training. Trying to figure out where I want to work as a gym trainer so I can get my certification.”

“Ooh, when are you planning on taking your boards?”

Nessa tucks her hair behind her ears. “Youngest they’ll allow is fifteen, I think.”

Leon turns to Raihan. “What about you?”

“Same, really. Helping my parents at the conservatory. We were doing some research into the wild area. There’s a clutch of jangmo-o eggs in the dust bowl we’re watching. Mom’s trying to prove that the weather has something to do with low fetal survival and all that, so we have to watch the weather patterns carefully.”

“Mm, that’s cool.” Leon says, and rests his head on his shoulder.

“First time you see us in weeks and the first thing you do is conk out?”

“Shut up.” He grumbles. “I was heroically investigating a poaching case.”

“Rose shouldn’t work you so hard.” Raihan says. “My aunt’ll beat his ass for you.”

He snorts. “I’m fine, just tired.”

He dozes for a while, and eventually they get up and Leon has to go back to his room.

Somehow, a picture of them at the cafe ends up on the internet. Leon isn’t surprised.

Raihan gets two thousand more followers that day, and a very dedicated fanbase. 

“You need to be more careful with your public image.” Rose says. Leon doesn’t really understand what he’s getting at. There’s nothing wrong with the picture, after all, but he looks angry, the slow, hidden kind, the anger of a snake poised to strike. The warning bells are back, chiming in his head. “Your behavior reflects on the companies that sponsor you. It would do you well to remember that.”

It’s weird, because he can’t remember what it was like before.

“I understand.” He says, and some of the anger retreats. Those thunderclouds are still on the horizon, though, and through the haze of the three hours of sleep he’s collected in the past couple of days, he recognizes latent danger when he sees it. “It won’t happen again.”

More meetings, more meetings - wait, he hasn’t seen the case on the news at all.

_Weird,_ isn’t it?

It seems like something so high profile would’ve shown up somewhere, but he’s been trawling through the internet for proof for days, and he hasn’t found anything. He scrolls all the way back in the group chat to find the article, only to discover that the link is dead. He asks Melony about it, and the answer doesn’t come straight. She doesn’t know, either.

But now-

“Spikemuth is a bigger issue.” Rose tells him smoothly.

“There’s no concrete evidence of any ship.” Oleana says, not looking up from her computer. She scheduled him three seven AM meetings back to back this week, he clearly did something wrong, but he’s pissed right back at her. “The media has more important things to focus on. If we don’t figure out what to do about Spikemuth, there’s going to have to be internal change within the league.”

“Wouldn’t moving it be more of a hassle?” He points out. “Everybody’s used to it being there anyways.”

Their Dynamaxing - or lack thereof - really shouldn’t be as much as an issue as it is. He thinks it must be bigger than that. The PR coach tells him to look for ticks, cracks in everyone’s performances. Point them out, learn to paint over them, don’t make the same mistakes. The longer you wear the mask, the easier it gets to feign. Rose seems angry. He isn’t sure why.

“It’s a deeper issue than that.” He explains diplomatically. “I’d like you to act as a liaison and go see them - they’ll be more receptive to a younger public figure. You and Piers are friends, aren’t you?”

He and Piers haven’t spoken in, like, a year. Rose doesn’t need to know that.

“Yes.” He lies, and smiles his press smile. If he does it long enough, everyone will think it’s his real smile, and he can do it in personal interactions, too. “I can go to Spikemuth.”

“Good.” Some of the tension leaks out of the room. Oleana types something into her computer. “Your taxi will be here at twelve.”

Leon tries not to sigh. He was hoping to get some sleep, but, fine, whatever. It’s not like he dislikes Spikemuth - he quite likes it, in fact, and he likes helping people, so it’s fine.

He shoots a text to Raihan: _sorry I can’t meet today, have to go to Spikemuth_

(This is the third time he’s had to cancel plans, Raihan is probably getting sick of this. He’s just… busy).

He hikes up his bag on his shoulder, tossing whatever he needs into it for however long he needs to be there. 

Eris hops on the bed, and balances on his shoulder as he zips it shut and stumbles towards the door. She keens and wraps a shadowy hand around his shoulder. He grins and pats her head.

Rose gives them an odd lingering look on the way out, and then calls the taxi over.

He slides inside, shutting the door behind him. The corviknight spreads its wings, and Leon closes his eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The plot thickens! If you noticed the prose become a little more meandering further down the chapter, it's meant to reflect Leon's exhaustion (this is where that angst tag comes into play folks)
> 
> The holiday season is always really busy for me so thanks for putting up with this update schedule! Hope you all have happy holidays!


	21. Chapter 21

“You look like shit.” Is the first thing Piers says to him in upwards of a year, snubbing a cigarette out on the railing behind him before throwing it in the nearest trash bin. “Don’t tell my Mom, she’ll skin me alive.”

“You’re not the first person to tell me that.” He shrugs, and then, perfectly familiar with maternal wrath, “And I won’t.”

Piers huffs, scuffing his off-white sneakers on the gutter. Spikemuth is a daze of smeared kaleidoscope color cracked to rainbow pieces on the cement. Serrated, bottle-green shards of glass lingered in the middle of the road where someone must’ve smashed it, the soggy remnants of newspaper clippings clumped into an unfortunate pulp in the waterlogged gutters. The sad, sagging billboards dripped with recent rain. The drizzle had thankfully let up, but the city was still wet in the afterimage of its storm. “Appreciate it. What brings you here, mister champion?”

The last word is a drawl that makes him flinch. He kicks a can down the dark street. A party roars somewhere down the street. Another concert. He can feel the music rocking up through the asphalt, the vibration striking his bones like flint and steel. 

“The gym.” His hand falls to the nape of his neck. “The Chairman is being… difficult, again.”

Piers raises an eyebrow, slouched forward, hands tucked deep into the pockets of his ripped jeans as he ambles forward. His black eyeliner is smudged at the corners. 

“You’re different than I remember.”

“O-oh?”

The _stuttering_ again.

“More… diplomatic.”

Leon can _hear_ him frowning. It’s a talent, to be able to convey that through sound alone. 

“PR lessons will do that to you.” He attempts a smile, trying to keep the mood light. Piers ruffles a hand through his hair.

“Yeah, I figure. Shit like that’s why I don’t sign up with a record label, and it’s why I don’t wanna become the gym leader.”

Leon glances up at him. “You make music?”

“Yeah. Probably not your type, though.”

“Eh.” Leon shrugs, and grins. He doesn’t really have a type. But he does have an affinity for ghost types, so music is the least likely thing to freak him out. Trying to coax Eris out into the light, when Eris did not want to be seen? Now that was terror. “I see ghosts.”

Piers snorts. “Not bad. I assume you’re here for my Mom?”

“Yeah. It’s about the power spot again.”

“Ugh.” He wrinkles his nose. “Is he ever gonna shut up about that?”

Leon sighs. His breath whistles through his teeth. “Probably not unless you move the gym.”

Piers side-eyes him. “And you?”

“Hm?”

“Are you here to convince us to move the gym?”

_“Are_ you gonna move the gym?”

“Obviously not.”

“Then no.”

Piers looks at him suspiciously for a little longer, before breaking off. “That was easy.”

“If you’ve been avoiding it for the last decade, nothing I could say is gonna change that.”

“Bold move, Casper. Your boss gonna be okay with that?” His foot splashes in a suspiciously murky puddle that smells like gasoline. Vesta would probably try to drink it.

“Casper’s a ghost, I can just sense them.”

“Keep avoiding the question and you will be a ghost soon.”

His jaw clicks shut. “I don’t think he’s gonna be happy until you move the gym, and there’s no way he thought I was gonna convince you to do it.”

“Alright, then why go to the trouble of sending you out here?”

That’s what he was wondering. 

He plays with the end of his hair. It’s getting kind of long. “I’m not sure. Maybe so he can sort through the PR mess I sort of maybe made.”

“PR mess?” Piers raises an eyebrow. Leon notices the gleam of another piercing in his cartilage, reflecting the fuschia strobe lights pouring out a residential window. “Do enlighten me.”

“I, uh.” Heat creeps up his neck. “May or may not have fallen asleep on Raihan, which may or may not have gone viral.”

Piers wheezes. It takes him a minute to realize he’s being laughed at.

Okay, sure, maybe it’s embarrassing as hell, but he’s not about to take this kind of offense from the walking skeleton. “It’s not funny!”

He laughs again, shoulders trembling. _“Arceus,_ that’s great.” He nudges him with a shoulder. “You two aren’t exactly the most subtle, huh? Damn, I thought Rose would’ve loved that. Romance scandals get you a shit ton of publicity. You two are probably the talk of the city. Either of you grow a pair and confess yet?”

Leon squawks indignantly. “We’re not-”

“Yeah, yeah.” He shrugs him off. “Young love is embarrassing, whatever.”

_“You’re a year older than me.”_

“Really.” He continues dryly, just to rile him up, now. “Don’t let me get in the way of whatever internal conflict you’re having. Please continue.”

He wishes Rose had just made him do extra lessons, or something. This is definitely worse.

“Mom’s performing.” He says, leaning back against the chain link fence. “She’ll be out after she’s done, if you still want to ask questions.”

He sighs, heavier. “It’s probably not worth it.”

He rolls Tiamat’s ball in his hands. “What’s the deal with this, anyways?”

From a lamppost, a murkrow hisses at them. _Hisses._

“Don’t mind them.” Piers says, as if a honchkrow hasn’t tried to eat him before. “Try not to freak out, they can smell fear.”

“Okay.” He says faintly. “Noted.”

“It’s a big thing with the older people. I really just hate Rose.” He rolls a chunk of broken asphalt under his heel. “You see how run down this place is, right? Real shithole. But it’s my shithole. You’d think something on the league circuit would be nicer to look at, right?”

Well, Leon sort of likes the aesthetic going on.

“It is a little weird…” He mumbles. The rest of the cities they passed through that hosted a gym looked, for the most part, well put together. Turffield was maybe the only one that wasn’t a booming commercial hub, and that was because of its farmland and historical value. Something smaller, less obtrusive, was probably an easier transition for aspiring league challengers, too. But Motostoke? Circhester? Hammerlocke? He’d always assumed that level of wealth and infrastructure came from revenue from the gym challenge, but maybe not.

“I thought it was because the other ones were major cities. Hulbury has a port, Motostoke and Hammerlocke and Wyndon are tourist traps, Terrfield’s a farming community.”

“That’s true, but Spikemuth is right on the coast. We’d make a good port, don’t you think? And being so close to Hammerlocke means trade opportunities.”

“That’s…” He purses his lips. “Yeah, that’s weird.”

“There’s no hotels or anything here, either, none under Rose’s company names. He likes it that way, so we don’t benefit from the same amount of tourism. Challengers’ll still come through to get the badge, obviously, so there’s always that, but it’s nowhere near the traffic Turffield or Hulbury get.”

Leon frowns, leaning against the railing. It’s still wet. “So what does that have to do with the chairman?”

“I’m getting there, don’t rush me.”

Leon folds his arms, chastised.

“It’s like this: no challengers coming through, no money, everybody here suffers. There’s a reason we have such a bad reputation with the rest of the league, and that asshole refuses to help because we won’t move the gym.” He sighs, loosening some of the tension. “Maybe it’s selfish not to, but the only power spot is on sacred grounds, and why should we have to use them anyways? I think it’s all bullshit.” 

“He’d really do that?”

“He’s the one in charge of every company in Galar, Leon.” He says, flat. “Who’s going to tell him no?”

Oh, Arceus, he’s about to do something stupid. These are all the reasons he _shouldn’t_ make Rose mad, especially considering he works directly beneath him. He’s not going to sleep for a week.

“I’ll help get Rose off your back.”

“... what, really?”

“Yeah. I don’t want you guys to have to move your gym just because it doesn’t do well with tourists, or something stupid like that, and you shouldn’t have to deal with all this.” It was still… well, strange. It wasn’t exactly a difficult thing to reconcile. It made sense that someone so brutally efficient would reflect that sentiment in everything they did; cutthroat, after all, was the quickest way to get what you wanted. It was, however, difficult to attach it to a figure of Galar. Impossible and far reaching, that someone could stoop that low, to petty manipulation.

_Your little pet project_ echoes in his head.

“You’re sure _you’re_ gonna be okay, ghostie?”

“It’s not really like he’d do anything to me, anyways.” He shrugs. A bent, dull blade was a useless one. Anyone with proper regard for their tools knew better than to damage them too terribly. “I’ll probably just get sent on more stupid errands.”

Piers snorts. “Alright then. You good here?”

“I shouldn’t go back yet. I got packed and everything. I’ll just say there was another honchkrow attack and we’ll be good.”

Piers mock-saluted him, wedging his fingers into the chain link. “I’ll relay it to my Mom.”

“She’ll go along with it?”

“Please.” He scoffs. “It’ll make you her favorite kid. You need a place to stay tonight?”

“Nah, I’ve got it. I brought a tent, so I should be good camping.”

“Alright then. Night. Good luck with the Chairman.”

Leon hikes his bag up on his shoulder. “You too.” 

“Leon.” Rose greets cheerfully, seated in his newly designed office. Leon thinks he must’ve pulled a muscle in his shoulder yesterday; the dull ache is there, never quite far from the presence of mind. He missed three texts from Raihan and a phone call, Raihan never makes phone calls, and he should check them. He misses Raihan like a painful thorn. “You know what we do for Galar is essential, right?”

They’ve had this conversation before.

When a bone heals wrong, you must re-break it. Pain experienced now to save future suffering. Preliminary action to cull unnecessary variables. All very practical, all very straight forward, all, as he’s told, necessary to run the region. They’re all cogs in a well oiled machine, turning and turning and turning.

“Yes, sir.”

“It’s league season again, so it’s about time to switch up your team.”

“What?” He startles, fingers going white around his knees. 

“Champions tend to change their lineup before each approaching league season.” He explains, still in that cheerful tone of voice. “Just to swap a member or two out to better match the competition.”

He chokes over his own tongue, thick with disbelief. “I-we don’t know who the competition is yet-”

“Quick to catch on.” Rose’s eyes glint. “That’s why we’re going to keep you updated while you decide which pokemon to add to your team and which to rotate out. Considering your team is fairly strong, I would suggest one of the ghost types. I understand your affinity towards them, but most ghost types aren’t the most… agreeable, as I’m sure you’ve come to understand.”

Stones line his lungs. The words on his tongue drip like acid. “Sir…”

“Rotating the mimikyu out would be the most practical choice. Now, Leon, it’s not as if I’m asking you to _release_ it, just temporarily remove it from your roster, of course. Poor team ratings reflect poorly on our administration as a whole, and I’m sure that’s something that can be avoided.”

“But, more importantly, your avenues of opportunity have opened. Have you heard of the Isle of Armor?”

“Isle of… what?” The response comes too quickly. He’s still thrown off from before, as if he were trying to pillow the statement with more news of a departure. 

“Isle of Armor.” He repeats cheerfully. “A wildlife preserve, if you will. Full of sacred grounds and, of course, a bit of a living case study for our scientists concerning biodiversity and the dynamax phenomenon - I’m sure that will peak your interest, if nothing else. You need special permission to enter either protected zones, under normal circumstances, but a former champion has reached out to me on your behalf. I’m sure this will be a fantastic opportunity to train yourself and your new team member.”

“Oh.” He says. “Oh! I, thank you, sir. This is, um, very generous of you-”

“All accommodations will be taken care of, and the necessary funds will be taken care of. You’ll be spending the next couple of months on the Isle under the care of the dojo there. It isn’t hard to find. I could tell you more, but I’m sure you’d rather discover it for yourself.”

It wasn’t even that he _didn’t_ want to go to the Isle, because honestly, exploring a new corner of the region sounded _vastly_ superior to whatever grunt work he’d otherwise have to do for Rose, but… 

It was just that _nagging_ again. The kind of whispering he got outside the Slumbering Weald, like static. _Don’t go in there,_ it warned, soft, crackling, broken radio feed. There was really no explanation for it - but rarely was there ever, for phenomena such as this. 

It was just strange, is all. The timing, especially. The situation with Spikemuth, with the boat, with the investigation, or lack thereof.

It seemed a little like they didn’t want Leon _here._

Did that count as neglecting his duties as champion? Was it alright for him to just leave when there were things that needed to be taken care of at home? 

Well, he could question that anytime, just not now, seated in his office, expecting a response.

“Of course, Sir. When do I leave?” 

He leaves in a week, apparently. That leaves him little time to inform Mom and Hop, and little time to get everything he needs done, little time to explain to Eris the situation.

“The Isle of Armor, huh?” Raihan says, shoving his hands deep in his pockets. The cold wind blowing off the scaffolding of the houses in the oldest sector in Wyndon is cold, bitterly so. It’s just the time of year, but it’s also the Arctic tundra that protects it from the rest of the world. “My Dad’s been there. He's always complaining about the travel. You need a passport, right?”

Leon grumbles. “I don’t want to go through customs.”

“Ah, it’s not that bad. And you’re the champion, so you’ll be fine.”

He grumbles again, and sinks closer into Raihan. He’s still tired, but he’s also excited, as he always is at the promise of adventure. 

“What does your Dad do there?”

“Fieldwork, obviously. All that neat stuff.” He kicks a foot out. “There’s actually a lot of dragons there, which is weird compared to how many dragons you find here, and the distribution is all off. Again, probably because of the weird inconsistent weather patterns. And then there’s the fact that all of them are different from what you find up here, and that doesn’t make any sense so Mom’s back on the Pangea theory-... are you listening?”

“Mm.” Leon says, closing his eyes. “Not really.”

“Sorry.” He scratches the back of his neck sheepishly. His canines peek out of the corner of his mouth. “I’ve been talking to Sonia a lot. I think she’s rubbing off on me with all her rambling. I think she has a thing for history - keeps asking about my family vault and all that.”

“It’s okay.” He bumps his shoulder. “I like listening to you talk.”

Raihan inhales sharply and chokes on nothing but air, which quickly dissolves into a stream of bubbling, nervous laughter.

“Woah, are you okay-?”

“Fine, Fine!” He says, an octave too high. “Perfectly fine, not sure what happened there.” 

"Mm." Leon frowns, and then leans back in to brush shoulders again. It's a casual kind of affection, a comfortable one, that you grow into after time.

"What about you, dandelion? You seem kinda down for someone about to go to a restricted wildlife preserve."

"I'm just tired." He says, scuffing his shoe. "I'm actually... kind of excited."

"You should be! Go see all those cool dragons. Take pictures. Make me jealous."

Leon laughs. "Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"It'll be nice to get out of here. See something that isn't the city. Travel again."

"Yeah, you haven't done that in a while, huh?" They turn a corner aimlessly. They've walked past this boutique three times already, but there's virtually no one in the street and it's nice not to be hounded. The train doesn't come for another thirty minutes anyways. 

Another breeze chills the air, and he shrinks behind Raihan.

"No fair! Are you using me as a windbreaker?"

Tall people are good for one thing.

He grins. "Maybe a little."

Raihan rolls his eyes. His smile is fond. "You don't have much time to yourself now, do you? This can be like... a nice vacation, right?"

"Convenient." He mumbles. "Keep an eye on everything here. Remember everything I told you?"

"And what's going on in Spikemuth." Raihan confirms. "Got it all, dandelion. I've got it here. Go enjoy your stupid trip, and remember, when you get back, _I'm_ gonna be the one to steal your title."

Leon grins, and falls back into the easy rhythm of banter. He turns, walking backwards to face Raihan. "Not on your _life_."

Raihan sees him off to the train station, and he watches him disappear in the distance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter!! Leon is carted off to the isle of armor so that he can't nose around in affairs that Rose doesn't want him in!
> 
> Also I'm sorry this took so long an outlet in the house like... melted??? I literally do not know but like a wire melted or something, the entire circuit was down, we didn't have wifi for a while, and uhhh fkflsds it's wonderful
> 
> Happy new year let's hope 2021 doesn't suck nearly as bad as 2020 did!


	22. Chapter 22

Customs itself is, undoubtedly, the worst of the trip. The hours of slogging through tightly roped off lines and stepping through metal detectors, and back, and though again, eat up more of the day than the travelling itself. He shows up three hours earlier than his flight is scheduled and the lines are still unbelievably long, parking lot clogged with slow-moving cars hunting for parking spaces, the constant chatter into phones and with family rising above the mindless drone of TSA agents rehashing the same rules to each person who shuffles forward.

Their section is carefully separated from the rest. Most of the crowd is made up of people he assumes to be scientists, anxiously checking watches, tapping feet, ensuring that none of their pokemon got lost in the baggage claim (that being an ongoing debate on whether they should be kept with the luggage, considering how prevalent horror stories about losing pokemon and having them swapped with a stranger’s were), which was consequently stressing him out about whether _his_ team was going to get lost in the baggage claim.

Vesta would never forgive him.

He supposes that explains why the labelling process takes so much time, ensuring that each person’s team is connected to their trainer card and the rest of their bags. The only ones that are allowed in the plane itself are ones licensed for therapy, which would be something fun to pursue if any of his team were even remotely more sociable or of proper disposition.

(Or size. There was a reason you didn’t see many Golurk getting registered).

The worst obstacle was getting Vesta’s paperwork through, which was always the more difficult part. They made him fill out another information sheet while the line behind him got visibly annoyed, which was perhaps the worst part of all.

The plane ride is uneventful, as is the getting out part. 

He sighs with relief as he gets his bags back, and the receptionist stamps his passport, and the automatic doors slide open, giving way to miles worth of coast and bleached white sand.

Finally.

Despite his year of travelling, he’s never actually made it to a beach, the one outside of Spikemuth notwithstanding. Given how cold it was, he’s loath to count it. It’s part of the experience, Sonia said, thrusting a brochure in his hands with all the places she wanted him to visit circled in red sharpie. As he unfolds the map supposed to lead him to the dojo, he stares at it and realizes he has absolutely no idea what he’s doing.

“Right.” He says. Tiamat circles lazily in the superheated air, thick with humidity and sunlight, basking in the warmth and occasionally reaching out to snap at the curious krabby that made the mistake of scuttling their way. “I have no idea what any of this means. I mean, it’s probably fine if we’re a little late, right?”

He lets some of the weight ease off his shoulders, and some of the tension melts off him . He hadn't realized how stiff he was. It got to be habit, after long enough. You neve knew when there were cameras on you, so a certain degree of hypervigilance was required. At some point habit scratched itself onto the marrow of your bones and forgetting took more energy than acquesising. He was beginning to learn that hurt had a sort of pattern to it too, until you were so desensitized to it that it was hard to pick out amongst a million other stimuli.

“Asha!”

The haxorus swings her head out of the water, stomping through the sand. The sun bounces off her scales like polished gold, foam climbing around her heavily armored legs, but she just looks ridiculous with a comically horrified shellder hanging out of her mouth. 

“Those are _poisonous.”_

He grasps the indented edge of its shell to pull it out of her grip, and she growls, shaking her head.

He laughs. “Stop! Give me that! It’s not a _chew toy!”_

Tiamat takes that as his invitation to harass the local fauna and goes back to terrorizing a particularly brave (or stupid) kingler, snapping an angry claw at him.

Asha pulls again, before spitting the probably traumatized shellder back into the ocean, before batting her tail against the incoming wave and getting water everywhere.

“Guys!” He shrieks, leaping out of the way of the cold droplets as she splashes around. Vesta pounces on Tiamat and wrestles him into the sand, kicking up an ungodly amount that he’s definitely going to have to pick out of her scales later, while Dock eyes the water suspiciously from the shade of frilled palm trees. Micah keeps a respectful distance, the only behaved one among them, and he has no idea where Eris is. Scaring the life out of some unassuming tourist, probably. 

“You’re all an embarrassment.” He says fondly. Vesta huffs a breath of smoke, and Asha growls again, stomping towards a starmie. Hopefully not to pick a fight. “I have no idea what you all want from me. We do have to get to the dojo, you know. We still have things to do.”

None of them listen, because of course they don’t.

He sighs, and drops his arms from where they’re crossed. When was the last time he relaxed? His team probably wanted a chance to just mess around in a way they weren’t allowed to in the tower, or anywhere in public. He hadn't really… stopped to think about what a , _pain_ the media really was, and how much work went into cultivating an online presence, or what effect that was having on his team. When was the last time they’d done _anything_ remotely fun, or that didn’t involve work? 

He’d just started to… internalize it, really. It just became another part of life.

“Well…” He heaves an exasperated smile. “I guess there’s no rush.”

Dojo Master Mustard is quite possibly the strangest person he’s ever had the luxury of meeting. The name, for one, is wonderfully unique and decidedly odd. He recognizes him from Rose’s debriefing as one of the former champions, the one with the longest win streak. It seemed like he hadn't given up battling, which is nice.

He stands among what must be twenty or so other students, the pack of them living and breathing in a way that feels painfully authentic and quaint, ranks closing around the outsider. The black haired girl with the braids had eventually come to escort him once he proved his inability to navigate an island this big. Admittedly, they might’ve gone a bit overboard on the whole ‘leisure time’ thing, but it had burned the rest of the lingering paranoia right out of him.

“... so, point being, it seems I’ve lost a few of my slowpoke!”

“...you’ve got to be kidding.”

 _“Again?”_

“Arceus, are we going to do this every time you get a new student-?”

“Now, now.” Mustard waves a good natured sleeve. Leon can’t, for the life of him, figure out what’s going on. “It’s good for your training! Let’s see who can get them all first this time!”

There’s a sort of silent, collective groan. The thickness of exasperation in the air can be felt. It’s fascinating. 

“Well, what are you all waiting for?”

“I’m gonna catch it first!” A girl with bright, bubble-gum pink hair declares, shouldering past her friends as they all erupt into a cacophony of giggles. That being said, for all their joking, they’re competitive, and Leon thinks of Raihan, and he wants to win. 

Mustard didn’t say that pokemon weren’t allowed, so he runs out the doors and lets Vesta back out again, slinging a leg around her neck as she takes off.

The marshlands glisten under the hot sun. Quagsire and wooper slog through puddles of bog water seeping up through the ground, each framed with sawgrass and grass sedge, cattails frowning over them on either side. A drapion turns to swing a claw at them, narrowly missing the soles of his sneakers. 

A laugh tears itself out of his throat as the wind yanks at his hair, and Vesta tucks into a barrel roll, like the drama queen she is. He spots the first slowpoke (and wow, is it _fast,_ what the hell-) sprinting around Northeast sector, splashing through reedy water and greatly upsetting the drednaw sunken into the silt, exhaling a stream of frustrated bubbles.

“There it is!” He points, and Vesta swoops down, talons extended to pluck the stupid thing from the water before it can get itself eaten. It huffs indignantly, squirming in her hold, and Leon shakes his head on it. “Maybe you shouldn’t have escaped then, huh?”

The drednaw eyes them from among a swaying sea of tubers, and he angles Vesta away before she has the chance to take that challenge. They fly circles over the marshlands, looking for anybody that might need assistance with herding the (apparently ungodly strong, seriously, what the _hell)_ slowpoke. 

It seems like the other two escaped has been found (one by a trainer with a similar idea, situated upon the back of his talonflame) so they’re probably good to go back. 

“Well!” Mustard says, folding his hands behind his back. “I think that’s the first time anyone’s ever caught one so fast, and efficiently! Your Charizard must be quite strong!”

“Uh, yeah, she really is.” He scratches the back of his neck, where he tied the rest of his hair up into a ponytail. It’s really too hot to walk around with your hair around your shoulders. He eases into his real grin surprisingly easy. It must have something to do with the fact that he’s a former champion, too. Kindred spirits, and all that.

“What are you _feeding_ these things?” The pink haired girl - Klara? - grunts, hoisting the slowpoke higher on her hip. “I swear it was gonna take a bite out of Aya.”

Slowpoke definitely weren’t supposed to be that aggressive, but nor were they meant to be that fast, and yet, here they are.

Mustard only smiles in response. “A magician never reveals his secrets!”

Honey, Mustard’s wife, steps in from the back, one arm cradling an infant to her chest. “Darling!” She calls. “That Rhydon out there is being a bit of a problem again-!”

“Oh, goodness.” He shakes his head. “Well, I’ll see right to that.”

“Rhydon problem?” He echoes.

A dark haired boy nods, and crosses his arms over his chest. “Some asshole trainer just left him out there or something. I don’t know. But he’s really upset over it, and he causes rockslides a lot of the time.” His tone dries. Leon’s stomach twists, and the mood sours.

“Oh.” He says, lamely. Guilt twists in his side. “I can help.”

“Well,” Mustard replies. “I’d love the company.”

They walk down the cobblestone path tracing the many squares of training fields before stopping at the first upward climb of rock. He can feel the trembling under the earth like a second heartbeat, rattling his bones.

“Any particular reason you came to help?”

He bites his tongue. “Oh, no. I just figured, since I’m staying here, I could at least help out.”

“In that case, you shouldn’t worry.” Mustard laughs. “We’re the ones that invited you, after all. And if Honey thought I was being anything less than hospitable, she’d wring my neck!”

Leon rubs his arm. The chill of evening air blows most of the humidity off the coast, and as the sun sinks over the bay and into the water, it takes the heat with it. He… was not anticipating the turn of this conversation, and he doesn’t exactly know how to fix it. The silence dragging on is uncomfortable, and he can’t be leaving a bad impression. His lessons were supposed to fix this. If he isn’t being useful, then what is the purpose of him being here?

“I used to have a rock type.” He admits. “Part ghost, because I’m technically a ghost trainer, but, yeah.”

“What type?”

Mustard takes his awkward scrabbling in stride. He tries to remember his interview practices, but those were always about answering questions, not asking them. Carrying a conversation is harder work than he thought.

“A golurk. El is… um, protecting home, now.”

“It is in their nature to be protective.” Mustard nods, casting a knowing look over his shoulder. “Especially in the presence of danger leveled at their homes, though I’m surprised it didn’t deign to stay with you. They’re quite the loyal types, don’t you think?” 

“Oh, um.” He cringes under the weight of a glance that’s almost knowing. 

This is stupid, he thinks, with some sense of finality. There’s no reason he should be making this so awkward, it’s unbecoming. Were those lessons just a waste after all? 

“Well I, um, I was endorsed by the Chairman, and everything I do still reflects on him, and Golurk aren’t exactly, well, they aren’t really considered _popular_ in the public eye anywhere outside of Unova, and they’re ghost types which is already pretty bad for publicity, especially dusknoir, which I also had, but-”

He snaps his mouth shut. Sonya is rubbing off on him.

“Well, it seems to be the logical thing to do.” Mustard nods. “But practicality isn’t always the ultimatum of things. The important thing is, how did you feel about that?”

“I don’t know.” He stumbles over his words for the first time in months. This is awful. If Rose heard him talk like this, he’d get lectured on publicity for an hour. But he’s not, and the cameras aren’t on him, and having a mini-crisis in the sheltered planes of a slowly forming fissure in the earth was fully acceptable if there was no one around to see it. “Nobody really asked-”

“Well, then it’s a good thing I did!” He turns, and the stomping gets louder. Mustard doesn’t even follow it up with anything, leaving him to brew in the unpleasant whirlpool of thoughts he was ignoring so well. 

The rhyhorn comes into view, stomping through the cave complex with a fervor.

“So far, the only way we can get it to stop is by defeating it in battle.” Mustard says, and then gestures for him to step forward.

It looks at him and all he can feel is some strange mix of _guilt,_ which he chooses to ignore in favor of attending to the oncoming battle. 

Dock emerges in a flash of light, and the fight is over within minutes.

The next morning proceeds as follows: valiantly ignore the strange and extremely unwanted feelings bubbling up in his chest, stretch and shower and get changed into the uniform sitting inconspicuously on the floor in front of him, and get told to find something called “Max Mushrooms”. 

“You can’t miss them.” Mustard says with every confidence, not having a clue that if it’s possible to get lost somewhere, Leon will manage it. “Leon, they’re dark red with a spiral pattern. Since you haven’t been around long enough to know the layout of the island yet, you can team up with… Klara, how about you?”

“Me?” She shrieks. He’s a little offended by the horror, honestly.

He makes a face, and immediately wipes it away. “Uh, I don’t think I’m _that_ bad.”

“Why are you making someone like me go with _him?”_

He has to stop himself from scrunching his nose up. That made for bad pictures.

And he has to stop to remind himself that there are no photographers, and he can make whatever face he pleases, and everyone just has to deal with that.

(He keeps himself perfectly blank and agreeable, just in case). 

“I’m sure there’s lots the two of you can learn from each other.” Mustard says seriously, and ushers them out. “Now go, go! You’re burning daylight!”

She groans, rolls her eyes, and crosses her arms. “Ugh, fine. C’mon, ponytail, let’s go find the mushrooms.”

She glares at him the entire time, as if he can’t see it.

“You’re not some bigshot just because you’re champion.” She grumbles. “I’ve been here way longer than you.”

“Um.” He says. He tries to think of something neutral to say back to that. “Okay.”

He winces, and she glares harder. “Most of those idiots are gonna go into the forest, but they’re being harvested in there or something, Honey mumbles about it all day ‘there are no mushrooms left, Klara!’ So none of them are gonna find anything. Maybe if we catch the weird digging guy at a good time he’ll let us into the cave.”

They end up having to bribe the digging guy (who proclaims himself Joe) to get inside, and then the darkness is too difficult to navigate normally, so they end up having Tiamat forward to scout. Vesta is a bad idea because of her smoke emissions and closed space, which never ends well, and none of his pokemon know flash. 

“This is the worst day ever.” She grumbles. “Where did your dragon go?”

“Tiamat!” He yells, to no response. He’s likely preoccupied with the mushrooms, having took off with some fervor when instructed. “Where are you?” 

“Tell me it didn’t strand us in here.”

Leon pinches the bridge of his nose, extremely grateful it was too dark to make out most of her features. “He’ll come back in a minute.”

She growls. “Why did he have to stick me with you?” 

“What is your problem with me, exactly?” He snaps, and then bites his tongue. Takes a deep breath. “Sorry, that was uncalled for.”

“No.” She replies, like an assole. “It was a fair response. I’ve been needling you for hours and you didn’t snap out of that annoying peppy golden boy act you have going on. It’s annoying as hell. No one should smile that much.”

“So you were just… what… annoying me to see how long it would take to get a reaction?”

She taps an acrylic nail against the stone. “It’s not like we have anything better to do.”

“You’re…”

“I’m what?”

He groans. “Now you’re just being difficult.”

He can almost _hear_ her rolling her eyes. “Look, I don’t know who you think you are, but if you think you can just stroll in here and take my spot as top student, you have another thing coming. You can take that championship trophy and that stupid dumb act-”

“It’s not an _act.”_ He says hotly. “It’s just…”

An exaggeration. Self control. He doesn’t know. 

He drags his hands through his hair. “This is not the most productive use of our time. Here, I’ll just-” He cups his hands to his mouth. “Tiamat! I know you can hear me! Micah can and will kick your ass if you lost us in here!”

Tiamat morphs back through the wall with three enormous, cherry-red mushrooms locked in his jaw. 

“...huh.” Klara says. “Not bad.”

“Now see,” Mustard smiles, accepting the evidence of their work. “Now that wasn’t so difficult, was it?”

Klara looks like she wants to strangle someone. Leon is about ten seconds from his second existential crisis in as many days. 

“No, sir.” He says anyways. Klara glares at him harder. He glares back. 

“Good! Now, it seems like only a few people finished the trial… if that’s the case, well, we’ll have a tournament style battle. The winner gets to take me on!”

Klara blanches. “You? But you’re-!”

Mustard offers a smile. “I’m no champion anymore, that title belongs to him now. Anyways! We’ll get the food going, and then we can arrange for the battle before it gets too late, a Dynamax battle.”

Leon wrinkles his nose. “What are your thoughts on property damage?”

“Hmm? Is it that bad?” 

He thinks back to the thousands of dollars worth or repairs that needed to be done on every stadium that had the misfortune of housing Vesta while she Dynamaxed, and grimaces. 

“No.” He lies.

“Well, it should be fine. Not a whole lot around to damage, obviously. Anyways, get along, the two of you, Honey’ll call you when it’s done!”

The battle does end up tearing through the training field. It ends up tearing through two training fields, actually, which Honey marks down as a new record. Except there are no thin-lipped smiles that follow, no belittlement, reminding him that he had a reputation to upkeep and that he should no better than to damage things mindlessly and he needed to keep better control over his pokemon. No, someone high fived him. He has absolutely no idea what to make of it.

“Congratulations.” Mustard sticks out a hand for him to shake, as per tradition. “You battle as well as you did on TV.”

“Oh, thanks.” And then, “You watched that?”

“I think most of the region did.” He takes an ambling step over the wreckage. “I think our friend is getting upset again. It must’ve been all the Dynamax energy - it feeds into the wells under the dojo.”

Leon follows dutifully after him, rolling Dock’s ball around in his hand. 

“Y’know,” Mustard says, and Leon winces, because though the anxiety hasn’t reared its head again, he doesn’t think he has it in him to endure another awkward conversation. “You look happier on TV, too.”

“The fight you saw was with Raihan.” He says immediately. “My… friend. And my rival. He’s the best person to battle, that’s probably what you saw.”

There’s a twinkle in his eye as he turns that makes him self conscious. “Fair enough. Forgive the non sequitur: I usually ask why our new students accept our invitation to train here.”

Leon frowns. “Is that relevant?”

“Humor an old man, would you?”

“Um, sure, I…” He pauses as he scales the steep incline of loose earth. What does he want, exactly? He wants to be helpful. He wants to be happy. All noble pursuits, sure, but difficult to quantify or articulate. There wasn’t a method behind them the way there was if he had answered 'doctor' or 'lawyer.' The championship followed logically from battling. To fight the best you had to be the best, but in doing so, he’d forsaken something else. 

He’d achieved what he wanted to. What was he doing _now?_

“I…” He bites his lip. “I wanted a break, I guess. I mean, that probably sounds stupid. Being champion is like, the coolest job ever, and a total honor to have and everything, it’s just nice to have a… reprieve.”

“Silly?” He laughs. “For the contrary! Whoever told you happiness is less valuable than accomplishments? Now, back in my day when I was champion, things were a fair bit different, but I think I was like you. Lots of cameras, press, media attention and all that. I must say it’s probably more difficult now, with all your… social media apps.” He waves a dismissive hand. “Personal responsibility is a virtue, but I took it a little too seriously, I think. It stops being something you want, and it becomes something you _must_ do. That’s why I ask; it’s easy to get tangled up in your dreams.”

Leon swallows. “That’s… kind of depressing.”

Mustard laughs. “Ah, well, they’re just the musings of an old man with too much time on his hands. Ah, here’s our friend.”

Leon considers the weight of Dock’s pokeball in his hand, and instead walks into the cave. The rhydon glares at him with narrowed eyes, lowering its head with the intention to charge, desperate to prove itself in battle, as if that’ll make the trainer come back, as if that’ll make the affection it was so desperately chasing come back.

“I used to have a Golurk, and a dusknoir.” He says. The rhydon stumbles out of its fighting stance, either in shock or boredom. “Um, before I was champion. And I was kind of thinking, it’s a little like your situation. I didn’t just leave them, or anything, but it was still…”

He pauses to organize his thoughts. “They weren’t on the team because someone… above me decided they shouldn’t be, and I didn’t even think about it. I mean, I did, but I didn’t question it. And I did it. I should visit them.”

It stares at him, and then slumps to the ground with a heavy thud. 

He’s never really… admitted it. Out loud. It feels good. 

“And he says it’s ‘for the better’ all the time, and I can never tell if he means it or not, but I’m the champion and it’s my job, so I just believe him. And I think he’s… doing his best, but,” He chews on his lip. “... that doesn’t mean you don’t hurt people. You’re probably hurting right now, huh?”

It looks thoughtfully at him. 

“We probably should’ve tried the ‘talk first’ approach, huh?” He grins, slanted. “You’re not so bad, are you?”

The rhydon huffs, and then nudges its head by his leg. 

Mustard claps his hands enthusiastically. “Well, Champion Leon, I think you’ve solved our problem!”

“-and it just, evolved into a rhyperior, just like that?” Sonya leans closer to the camera eagerly, clicking her pen. “That’s so cool! I was reading this paper published in Sinnoh about trade evolutions and it said it’s less about the trainer’s ID and more about the pokemon recognizing the new trainer, and since you just caught it, that totally supports the hypothesis!”

“Hey, nerd gang.” Nessa crunches on a bag of pretzels while her aquarium buzzes behind her. “I got a water puppy and all of you need to see him.” 

She pulls a mudkip out of the tank, which blows a bubble in response. “His name is Bubbles and I love him more than life itself.”

Raihan nods. “I would die for him.”

“I have a whole presentation and everything.” Nessa says, collecting him on her lap. He reaches a paw out to try and get to the pretzels. 

“Hey Leon, you good?” Raihan asks. “You look kind of…”

“A mess?” He grins. “Yeah. But I’m having fun. This has actually been… really nice. You guys, I saw a baby Kangaskan. I thought for a second the mom was gonna kill me since I got so close but she didn’t so it was cool. And apparently these mushrooms exist that can influence the Gigantimax phenomena? That seems like something your grandma would like.” 

“It’s good that you’re feeling better.” Raihan says, canines peeking out. Leon is not looking. He isn’t. “You seem less tired. And you’re not doing that weird thing with your face when you smile.”

“You mean pretending to smile? How can you even tell?”

“I mean, it’s kind of hard to forget the real thing.”

Something flutters in her chest.

“Guys!” Sonia groans. 

“Boo!” Nessa yells. “Go be sappy somewhere else!”

“Shut up!” Raihan says. “You’re just allergic to emotions.”

“Deathly.” She deadpans. 

“I’ve gotta go.” Leon says, smiling. He tries not to think about the fact that he forgot what Sonia’s voice sounds like, or that he hasn’t seen Hop in months. He almost missed his birthday a while back. “Gonna get some sleep before tomorrow.”

“Bye!” They chorus, and then the screen goes black. 

The walk through the forest is nearly unbearably hot. The very leaves themselves seemed weighed down with humidity. His shirt clings to his shoulders, and the local wildlife is starting to eye him like they’ve overstayed their welcome. They’re also, most definitely, lost. 

“I’m just going to follow this path as far as it goes.” He decides, and starts walking. Something cherry red and probably poisonous frowns onto the beat up dirt path, and a tangrowth glares at him from the bushes as he passes by. 

Beneath the usual sound of rustling leaves and crackling twigs, the sound of running water courses beneath. He keeps walking until there comes a breakage in the tree cover, which eventually leads to dirt, then scraggly grass, and then a beach full of white sand.

This was definitely not where he was supposed to be going.

He hangs around anyways, basking in the sun and wading a little ways into the water. And then his phone buzzes.

He opens it up, and Raihan’s contact flashes across the screen. 

_Piers says something’s going on near Spikemuth_

Something is going on, right when he went away too, just like he feared it might. 

Spikemuth is actually… not far from here at all. He can see the smoke of refineries rising in the distance, and something clicks. 

_Omw._

He turns to the ranger stationed at the edge of the beach, and asks him if he can bring a message to Mustard.

“Vesta.” He says, releasing her onto the sand. “You up for a detour?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guess who's not dead! Thank you for being so patient with me, have a longer chapter for waiting
> 
> Me: *takes a bunch of APs*  
> Me when I have a lot of work and tests: *surprised pikachu face*
> 
> Anyways!! Things are heating up! Mustard gives off major Grandfatherly vibes and I couldn't not capitalize on that. Also Klara is here because I love her


	23. Chapter 23

He should’ve made the connection a while ago, he knows. The lingering doubt has been lurking in the back of his mind like a burr since he toppled the championship’s pedestal, dwindling with each new facet of Rose’s reach that he unfurled. Piers’ admission had been the breaking point that finally turned doubt into suspicion, the shadow of unease that had loomed over the promise of any kind of vacation stretching wider with the minutes. Based on the ethos behind Rose’s work ethic, it was a poor idea to discard him to a faraway island while he could be doing work. Inside his own business model, it was less than efficient.

Which meant there was a reason he was doing it.

Leon angles his knees forward, steering Vesta to the left. Cold updrafts rise from the eternally cold ocean, bobbing with buoyant glaciers made of sharp edges put together at odd, sloping angles. The heat radiating off her back steams against her air, the flame at her tail battered by the wind, dispersing the thick fog blanketing the frostbitten air. He braces white-knuckled, numb fists around Vesta’s neck, feeling the powerful muscles in her back shift as she propels them forward. 

He should’ve known better. He’s the champion; he should be better. 

“That way!” He yells over the wind. 

The Aisle of Armor had done wonders for Vesta’s stamina. He can’t tell if it was the rest or the exposure to the Dynamax particles, but she’s been flying for the past hour without faltering. He squints through the cold, prickling air, looking for Spikemuth’s distinctive technicolor glow on the horizon. 

He leans forward when a smattering of light comes peaking over the horizon. Vesta rumbles deep in the base of her throat, a clear warning while he scours the crumbling cliffside for an isolated place to hide. Vesta isn’t exactly what he would consider stealthy, and given the general look of the building, there was no way it didn’t have security cameras. 

“There!” He points to a low overhang of rock, slick with brine. It looks just barely big enough for Vesta to fit, but if she tucks in her wings they can make it work.

She lowers her head and lumbers onto the outcropping, claws scraping against stone. Waves lap at the pebble beach below, kicking up foam into the air. He can taste salt and anticipation on the air. 

“Raihan said he was coming.” He mumbles, slipping his phone out of his pocket.

 _Sonia and Nessa did some digging. Something’s up with the factory near Spikemuth’s waterfront_ is the latest text, twenty minutes ago, with coordinates attached. He doesn’t need to look at them to know exactly which factory he’s talking about. 

_Where are you?_ He types. Nessa is the one to reply, _do you need help?_

Sonia’s, _we’re coming_ sends not two minutes later. 

Leon shifts his weight between his legs. Was it better to risk it and go forward alone, or wait until he could find the others?

If he waited too long, he might lose his courage, or miss his opportunity.

He reaches up to scratch the bottom of her jaw. “C’mon, we’re gonna go find these guys. Stay close to the rock.”

He scrambles for a foothold before starting up and along a narrow ridge rounding the side of the hill. Somewhere to the southeast is Spikemuth, never sleeping, but still docile, unknowing. Vesta’s claws scrabble against stone, too thin to support her weight. 

The building comes into view over the uneven teeth of rock spires, silvery framework of steel just barely visible in the moonlight. It sits just like he remembers it, garage open to the water, port swimming with cargo ships bobbing in the tumultuous waters. 

Its perimeter is guarded by tall fences topped with coils of barbed wire, teeming with gray-suited workers, some lugging around steel-rimmed barrels. 

“That’s the same boat, isn’t it?” He whispers, crouching behind the fringe of rocks. Vesta rumbles her assent. “I’m gonna tell the gym leaders, if Raihan already hasn’t.”

Now comes the real question: _how does he plan on getting in there._

Between the swivelling cameras perched like vultures upon the fence and the security guards roaming the grounds, he doubts very strongly that getting in there is going to be easy. 

His phone buzzes in his pocket. Raihan. 

_Melony traced it to poaching/experimentation. Tried to get a search warrant, was denied. I’m near the west wing, behind the rocks. Where are you?_

Leon declines answering at all. Instead, he stays low to the ground as he starts to move. “Let’s go find Raihan.”

There’s no time for casual greetings or happy reunions when he finds Raihan hiding in the hollow of an alcove near the factory. He looks frazzled, like he hasn’t slept, his hair windswept, eyes bright with unease. He isn't quite sure what he's been up to since he left, or how long trouble's been stirring up. He sits silhouetted in moonlight, barely visible in the dim light. 

“What’s going on down there?” He whispers. Raihan shifts next to him. “I’m surprised you didn’t hear already. Melony followed one of the poaching boats back here on her Lapras and when she tried to get in, they wouldn’t let her. There weren’t grounds for a search warrant - someone high up is pulling the strings, won’t let anyone get the camera footage. Then there’s - something going on with the pokemon in Spikemuth. I’m guessing you didn’t get Piers’ text, then.”

Leon grimaces. “Cell service is slow on the Isle. What’s happening there?”

“They’re thinking it’s some kind of - radiation. Piers called me a couple hours ago when he couldn’t get to you saying that something was off with the pokemon and the power spot. Which is why Melony’s trying to get the search warrant.”

“... they’re never going to get one.”

“Right. The only way to get in is to force it.”

Leon rolls Eris and Tiamat’s pokeballs in his hands. “I think I might have an idea.”

he thing about ghost types is that they’re, largely, unpredictable, biologically and behaviorally speaking. There’s very vague criteria for categorizing a ghost type, and it isn’t necessarily based on whether or not the thing happened to be alive at one point. Such flexible classifications left a wide variety in what a ghost type could look or act like, and even more people were misinformed on what exactly a ghost type was and what it was capable of, leaving myth and urban legend to fill in the gap left by superstition. 

Case in point, when Tiamat fazes through the gate with ease and begins knocking over barrels, the workers start to scream. 

“Another dreepy get loose?” One grunts, inching closer to the semicircle of destruction. Leon can barely see the shimmering line of camouflaged scales as Tiamat revels in his troublemaking, his tail lashing smugly. “I told them to stop capturing those fucking ghost types, they’re so creepy-”

Tiamat unhinges his jaw and _screeches._

The fun thing about ghosts is that their superstitions might be right. 

Leon grins as they startle back. Dreepy tend to be quiet, flighty, more likely to run. They certainly don’t confront their attackers with bared fangs. While Tiamat has his fun causing petty property damage, Micah slips around to sabotage the power box however she can. 

See, few people are prepared for ghost types when they stumble upon them. The precautions made weren’t any use against something that could will itself intangible, which wasn’t to be expected around here, where the primary threat was the occasional murderous grapploct that hauled itself onto the beach and the solitary dhelmise that drifted near the sea. Unless they had a slew of dark types hidden away somewhere, there wasn’t much that could be done to defend against them. 

“You would’ve thought this would be better guarded.”

“Maybe it’s not that high up. Just another research thing.”

Leon purses his lips. “I don’t know. If there was a… leak, or something, don’t you think we would’ve felt it? Or been affected by it?”

“Piers said it was mostly young pokemon, or small ones. Said the effects were like radiation poisoning, but that’s been reported around here for months now. We probably don’t have anything to worry about.”

Raihan leans forward on his arms. “Is Eris almost done yet?”

In the courtyard Tiamat dangles one of the workers by his leg while he yells for backup. Raihan’s Sandaconda hisses below from where he chewed through a section of fence hidden by scraggly underbrush while the guards were too preoccupied with Tiamat and Micah’s damage. 

“Now.” He says, and before he can stop to think about how monumentally terrible a decision this is, and how Rose probably stuck him on an island in the middle of the ocean precisely so he didn’t do something like this, he slides quietly down to where Sandaconda is holding the mesh up for him to army crawl under. 

Nobody notices two relatively small twelve year olds crawling towards the open door in the midst of the chaos. Eris waits at the doorstep, nearly hidden in the shadow of the receptionist counter, alongside a man slumped over in his chair. 

She brightens, next to the keypad she clawed through.

“Did she _kill_ him?” 

“Probably not.” Leon scoops her up. “Good girl.”

There aren’t any sirens going off yet. This hall seems relatively closed off. Only one scientist shuffles by, completely unaware of them hidden behind the counter. 

Eris chatters quietly, head tilting towards the right. 

“What-?”

A dreepy makes itself visible in the air, paler and more ghostlike than Tiamat had ever seemed, and he thinks: _oh. A real ghost._

The difference between ghost types who died and ghost types who came into existence that way is… thin, at best, but distinguishable. Some would call Tiamat the soul of a dragon type that had died, others would argue that he came into existence the same way any other species did. This is different.

It melts through the wall, and Leon leaps after it.

“Hey!” Raihan yelps. “Where are we going?”

“Following the ghost.” He replies, and, before Raihan can counter that, adds, “It’s not like we have a better plan. Maybe it’ll lead us to something.”

Their play at secrecy only lasts so long. Eris pushes carts to the side and sets off alarms and spills drinks, but as one researcher bends over to pick up her scattered pile of notes on the polished linoleum floor, she spots them.

Leon suspects they have about a minute before alarms start going off. 

They break into a sprint as a high pitched wail pierces the air. The dreepy leads them down another long corridor filled with doors, each barricaded, though he can’t tell if they’re usually that way or if this is because of the lockdown. Over the speakers, the PA drones out instructions for researchers to stay in their rooms and wait for the threat to be eliminated. 

Footsteps clatter behind them. Adrenaline surges in his throat, and Leon turns to see two, unfortunately, familiar faces. 

The first one, a shadow of stubble over his jaw, dark hair hanging into his eyes, grounds out in a thick unovan accent: “You’re the brat from the desert.”

And he has the very haxorus that they intended to take that day. 

A houndoom bursts from its pokeball, sharp-toothed maw hanging open to reveal the fire creeping up the back of its throat. Behind it, an arcanine, and a zweilous, both of its heads snapping, fangs bared. 

Raihan releases his flygon into the air. The narrow ceiling constrains his movements, clipping the berth of his wings to his sides. He intercepts houndoom’s stream of fire before it can hit the two of them, but sparks spatter onto the floor, singing the clean tile and melting through the rubber of his shoes. Its jaws snap impatiently, and it leaps. 

Leon releases Asha not a moment before the zweilous comes crashing towards them. It pounces on flygon’s wing, wrestling it to the ground, while the houndoom aims a flickering dark pulse. She materializes in a flash of red light, running before he can even tell her to do so, claws scaping against the floor.

“If we stay too long we’re gonna get caught.” Raihan says, drawing back. Leon glances over his shoulder at the dreepy, drifting eerily in the bright fluorescent lights. Asha slams the zweilous into the wall so hard the lights flicker. 

“Dragon claw!” Flygon forces the houndoom off and blocks against the arcanine in the same move. 

The man growls. “You’re not getting out of here alive.”

Leon shakes Raihan’s shoulder. “Cut them off!”

“Earth power!”

Flygon rouses himself, bracing against the floor, and with the horrible sound of screeching metal, a tsunami of stone and packed earth rips through the floor and pierces the ceiling. Dust and glass rains down on them. 

The men curse behind them, lost in the shriek of sirens and the groan of earth. The houndoom claws at the rock furiously. They both turn to run. 

“It’s not gonna hold forever.” Raihan says between breaths. “What are they even doing here that needs this kind of security- this has got to be illegal.”

Pain shoots up his calves as they pull a sharp left. Asha roars as another wave of pokemon come from the adjacent hallway, flanked by the security guards who’ve apparently caught onto their ruse. They can’t run faster than the ocean of guards on their heels. 

“Where’s Tiamat?” Raihan grouses. 

The bright red petals of a vileplume unfurl, secreting a spore - probably to render them unconscious. He hikes his shirt over his nose, and sends out Vesta. The only reason he hadn't wanted to let her out in such an enclosed space was that it left them at risk of smoke inhalation, or something catching fire and burning them all alive. 

Duraludon fights back the onslaught of attackers as Vesta blows away the spores with powerful downstrokes. A crease forms between her eyes, and he returns her before the full effects of the sleep powder can set in. 

Flygon screeches, and a thick spire of rock erupts from the ground and hits the wall hard enough to crack through steel. They startle hard, and Leon hits his shoulder against the wall. 

“C’mon!”

Raihan drags them forward, after dreepy. It leads them to a dead end, a room barricaded over. 

“I’ll hold them off.” Raihan says. “You just get that thing open.”

Dock and Vesta take turns heating and cooling the metal fast enough to soften it. She tears at it with her claws and Eris joins, prying the metal apart with ghostly claws, but it isn’t until Tiamat phases through the wall, covered in ash and soot, holding Micah in his mouth, that they manage to make any real headway.

“Where were you?” He hisses, but he doesn’t have time to fret over missing scales or shallow wounds. Micah cuts clean through the door, an opening just narrow enough that he can crawl through. The dreepy makes a keening, urgent sound.

“Raihan, are you good?”

Leon can hear the strain in his voice from the other side of the door. “Always, dandelion! Just try to hurry it up, got it?”

He grins despite himself. Sweat pricks the back of his neck, and exhaustion mixes with adrenaline in his gut. “You got it!”

“Tell me where to go.” He nearly whispers. Something bangs behind him, and he tries not to wince.

 _Raihan’s strong,_ he reminds himself. Tough as nails. _No way he’s gonna let a bunch of criminals beat him. He’ll be fine._

“Tiamat.” He says, despite that. “Go help him, okay?”

He makes a noise of affirmation, and disappears. 

It’s just him, and that’s going to need to be enough. He’ll make it be enough.

He’s led into a circular chamber, quiet enough that he can make out the quiet, ambient beeping of walls of machinery stacked up on top of each other. The echoes of the fight shiver down the steel framework and reverberate beneath his feet. Give ‘em hell. 

The mumbling of voices comes next. The agitated shuffling of an uneven gate. 

Eris chatters again, and turns down a narrow hall branching out from the main room. 

Formaldehyde burns his nose. Unease rakes ice cold claws down his spine. Each footfall is heavier, louder than it should be, easy to pick out among the whir of the air condition, the whistle of air through the vents, the low hum of machines. 

Something squeaks. 

The lights flick to life as he enters the darkness, bright enough to burn. Rows upon rows of cages stare down at him, cluttered with life. Curious, fearful eyes blink back at him. Pokemon that aren’t legal to bring into Galar, a wide assortment of dragon types, pokemon he’s sure are native to the Crown Tundra and are protected by law to be kept there, locked inside cages, sickly and wilted.

He exhales shakily. 

“It’s okay.” He whispers. “I’m gonna get you out.” 

Footsteps. He stiffens, and Eris growls. Micah shifts into her attack stance, ready to skewer whatever knew opponent should expose themselves. 

“Eris.” He says quietly. “Get the cages open.”

Asha and Tiamat are with Raihan. Eris is tending to the cages. That leaves him with Dock, Micah, and of course, Vesta, to work with. 

“Who’s there?”

Vesta bursts from her pokeball, and the scientist rounds the corner to see him. There’s a group of them, huddled by the table near a thick coil of black wire, hooked up to a platform towards the back of the room, interspersed with wells of light. Looking at it, the same static prickle of anticipation crawls down his arms as does every time he Dynamaxes. 

He breathes. “You’re trying to create the Dynamax phenomenon outside of power spots.”

The man’s expression sours, pinching around the lines carved into his face and around his mouth. His knuckles go white around his clipboard. 

A bisharp strides next to him, matching him in height. Its blades glare wickedly in the light. 

“You’re not allowed to be here, _champion.”_ He snaps. “What the chairman was thinking, making a little rat like you champion, I don’t know, but your reign ends now.” 

“He didn’t _make_ me _anything.”_ Leon snaps back, unsure of where the burst of fury came from. He takes a step back, and Micah stands at his defense.

“You think your reputation will recover after this?” He sneers. “Trespassing on private property, breaking and entering into a government research lab, assaulting guards, property damage - you’re stupider than you look if you think you’re getting out of this intact.”

“So I’m just supposed to sit here and let you do _this?”_ He gestures to the wall of caged pokemon. “What kind of person does that make me?”

“The smart kind.” The man growls. Defensive. Leon knows what stress looks like because he’s been taught to smooth it away for interviews. He’s learned enough about facial expressions to know that as much as there is disdain, contempt, hatred there, fear is just as present. Fear because they’ve been found out. Fear because this can never quite get back to being a covert operation. “You think the rest of the board doesn’t know about this? It’s for the betterment of the region. You’ve clearly let a hero fantasy get to your head.”

Rose knows. Of course he does. Leon knew that already, but there’s still something… terrible about knowing it.

 _He’s what made me what I am. He’s the reason I’m here at all._

It’s almost ironic that, if Rose hadn't endorsed him, if they hadn't had the misfortune to stumble upon him and his group of friends specifically, that this might have gone unnoticed for any period of time. 

“ _This_ isn’t better for _anyone.”_

The dreepy sits in his peripheral vision, mournful. For the first time in what must be years, he lets his anger simmer and sink into his bones until he can taste it on the back of his teeth. 

“We’ve already contacted the police to get rid of you.” He informs him haughtily. “But as long as you remain on the premises, we must… restrain you.”

The rest of his team materializes, and what must be some of the other’s, as well. 

He shifts uneasily. He needs to buy more time for Eris.

Another shockwave rips through the ground. His expression contorts, writhing contempt. The lights flicker again, and a siren wails, a red light sweeping across the ground and painting the lab in the colors of blood. 

They’re outnumbered. Vesta is tired from flying into the night, Micah and Eris from fighting. His pokemon look… strangely well cared for. Certainly strong enough to give him trouble. Then there’s the emerging chandelure, an unearthly purple light glowing softly in the corner of the room, the eelektross, a magnezone, an arcanine.

Leon isn’t sure who attacks first, but it hardly matters. Fire spits from one side, and then lightning, and then it’s a melee of claws and teeth. Vesta jumps into the air, swiping at the bisharp as it gets closer. Micah is preoccupied with the eelektross while Dock tries to fight the arcanine without flooding the place. 

An arc of lightning hits her from the air, and in the following moment the bisharp comes up behind him, driving its blade beneath his chin, just close enough not to pierce the skin. 

His team goes eerily still, even Eris, clawing at the cages. 

“Not another step.” The man commands. “Surrender and no harm will come to your trainer.”

Leon inhales slowly. Exhales. Thinks. 

_What do I do?_

Vesta snarls in the air, teeth bared, but she doesn’t move an inch closer. 

The sirens punctuate the slowly passing seconds like the ticking of a clock. He watches the dreepy sink down close to the control panel, hovering over the assortment of buttons. He locks eyes with Eris from over bisharp’s blade. Dock moves left, just slightly, to hide her from view as she stretches a claw into the shadow of the panel, creeping up and around, unseen. A bead of sweat drips down his face. 

She presses it.

The cages screech open, metal scraping on metal, and they jump from their prisons, scattering across the floor. Leon takes the opportunity to duck out of its grip, and Vesta immediately grabs its arm, wrenching it away from his throat. The scientist screams, an angry, guttural noise, lost among the stampede of sound. 

Vesta roars, and he orders them all back, voice ringing in his ears, away from the swarm of angry pokemon, just recently released. 

Something bangs on the door, denting the metal. 

“Leon!” Raihan yells, crawling through the opening in the door. He pushes past them, fighting against the current, clinging to the corner of the room. He reaches, and Leon reaches back. 

“We’re kind of trapped.” Raihan says. Soot clings to his clothes, his hair. Leon is used to it, but it’s strange to see on someone else. “I held them off as long as I could but there’s not a lot of space - only so much I could do until they got through.”

Leon nods. “It’s fine - we got the cages open. We should just get out of here now.”

Some of them were already leaving through the same entrance they’d clawed out of the metal. Flygon and Vesta start at the shiny metal walls, helped by the occasional stragglers in a bid to tear free an exit. Leon watches with rapt attention, the sound and adrenaline almost dizzying, until Raihan grabs his arm.

“What-?”

Outside. Through the mangled metal, not nearly big enough to get out of, blue and red lights wash over the grass. Police sirens echo in the distance. 

With a final cry, Asha hacks a way out of the wall, prying apart the metal skeleton of the building. 

Leon stumbles out onto the grass, into fresh air. He can spot Melony’s distinctive white in the distance, reinforcements coming to investigate the conflict.

“Guys!” Someone yells. Sonia. Leon almost sags against Raihan in relief. 

She and Nessa stand, waving at them from the beach. “We got help!”

Leon turns back to watch the procession of officers rush into the building, and lets the tension bleed out of his shoulders.

“C’mon.” Raihan says, equally exhausted, and hooks their arms together. Shoulder to shoulder, they join them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I FINALLY DID IT
> 
> It's break, it's like 1:30 am I'm so sorry if this is incoherent but I did it!! Since it's break and the next 2 chapters are relatively less taxing to write, they'll be up much sooner. Action is so hard to write fdsafklsfds I planned to have this out on Valentine's day but then I didn't so happy belated Valentine's day!
> 
> Thanks for reading!

**Author's Note:**

> I totally forgot that Leon's charizard is a boy in the games but... it's fine.
> 
> Also I know they don't let other people nickname their pokemon in game but it's kinda weird to just call them by their species name so I ended up giving them nicknames just to make it easier to differentiate.


End file.
